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CONFESSIONS OF 
A SCHOOLMASTER 

AND OTHER ESSAYS 



CONFESSIONS OF 
A SCHOOLMASTER 

AND OTHER ESSAYS 



BY 

LEWIS R. HARLEY, Ph.D. 

PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN THE CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL, PHILADELPHIA 

AUTHOR OF "FRANCIS LIEBER: HIS LIFE AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY"; 

"the LIFE OP CHARLES THOMSON, SECRETARY OF THE 

CONTINENTAL CONGRESS," ETC. 




PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 

1914 






.K^^^^h^ 



COPYRIGHT, I914, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 



PUBLISHED DECEMBER, I914 



PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 

AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS 

PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A. 



DEC 31 1914 



■^ 



TO 
WILLIAM L. AUSTIN 

DISTINGUISHED ALUMNUS AND BENEFACTOR OF THE CENTRAL 
HIGH SCHOOL, THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR 



PREFACE 

After a service of nearly twenty years in a 
large city high school, it is scarcely necessary 
for me to offer an apology for expressing the 
opinions on education contained in the first 
essay of this volume. My views may be con- 
sidered old-fashioned and out of date; but they 
are, in fact, the ideals of a great school and their 
worth has been proved through a long period 
of seventy-five years. The real test of these 
ideals is to be found in the lives and careers of 
the young men who have received their train- 
ing in the school. Education to be worth while 
must be established on a broad and liberal 
foundation, and as Dean West truthfully says: 
' * Like civil liberty, the higher liberal knowledge 
is always in peril and always worth fighting 
for." To those who would commercialize edu- 
cation and place it on a narrow utilitarian basis, 
the words of Alcuin are commended: "It is 
easy to point out to you the path of wisdom, 
if only ye love it for the sake of God, for knowl- 
edge, for purity of heart, for understanding the 

7 



8 PREFACE 

truth, yea, and for itself. Seek it not to gain 
the praise of men or the honor of this world, 
nor yet for the deceitful pleasures of riches; 
for the more these things are loved the farther 
do they cause men who seek them to depart 
from the light of truth and knowledge." Al- 
though this advice was given more than a 
thousand years ago, it still forms a good modern 
educational programme ; for it emphasizes those 
great fundamental principles that should guide 
us in the pursuit of all knowledge. It was this 
thought that I had in mind in preparing the 
essay on "Confessions of a Schoolmaster." In 
the "Commencement Address at Wenonah," 
my plea to scholars is that they shall consecrate 
their talents and learning to an unselfish service 
for mankind. In the paper on "Robert Ellis 
Thompson: An Appreciation," the influence of 
a great schoolmaster is described. With the 
thought of Alcuin in his mind, he has given the 
High School a distinctive character for culture 
and scholarship. The essay on "Ranke and 
His Pupils" shows how this group of German 
historians carried the same ideals into the 
realm of productive authorship, and how their 
methods in searching for truth became the 



PREFACE 9 

models for the historians of our own time. 
''Gossip in a Library," "The Deluge of Books," 
"Life Experiences of a Painter-Poet," 
"Thoughts on Memorial Day," and "Germany 
and England" complete the sequence of sub- 
jects treated in this volume, all of which were 
prepared at odd moments during the busy life 
of a schoolmaster. My thanks are due to my 
colleague. Dr. Harry F. Keller, who read por- 
tions of the manuscript and offered many 
valuable suggestions. 

Lewis R. Harley 

Central High School, Philadelphia 
November 14, 1914 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. Confessions of a Schoolmaster 15 

II. Commencement Address at Wenonah, N. J 35 

III. Robert Ellis Thompson: An Appreciation 51 

IV. Ranke and His Pupils 59 

V. Gossip in a Library 75 

VI. The Deluge of Books 93 

VII Life Experiences of a Painter-Poet 105 

VIII. Thoughts on Memorial Day 129 

IX. Germany and England 143 



CONFESSIONS 
OF A SCHOOLMASTER 



CONFESSIONS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

In his charming Httle book, "The School- 
master," Arthur C. Benson assures the teacher 
that while he cannot hope to accumulate great 
wealth, he may, after a life of useful service, 
"have an abundant stock of bright memories, 
tender thoughts and beautiful experiences; and 
he will be a very hard and dull person if he is 
not a little wiser, a little more thrilled with the 
mysterious wonder of life, a little more con- 
scious of the vast and complex design of the 
world in which he has been permitted to play 
a real part." This may, after all, be a very 
slight consolation to the schoolmaster in an 
age when there is a crying demand for higher 
salaries; and yet, as the recollections of eighteen 
busy years spent in the service of a large city 
high school pass before me, I find much in the 
vocation of the teacher to confirm Benson's 
optimistic views. Time is, indeed, a kind and 
gentle servant, removing from the mind the 
memory of drudgery and seeming failure, and 
cheering the vision with bright pictures of 
cherished companionships and of young men 
assisted to careers of successful achievement. 
For years, the gray walls and towers of the 

15 



16 CONFESSIONS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

High School have been my constant inspiration. 
There it stands, a magnificent temple of learning 
dedicated to the cause of higher education in a 
democracy. While lacking the cloistered air 
and mediaeval character of some of the great 
English schools, this institution is situated in 
the heart of a busy metropolis, and from its 
windows I can behold nearly every phase of 
our busy American life. The very situation of 
the High School indicates its mission in our 
city. Here, the various arts, sciences, com- 
merce, industry, and the learned professions 
flourish. It would, therefore, be a trite remark 
to say that the purpose of this school is to fit 
young men for their places among these complex 
civic relations. 

A retrospect of eighteen years should cure 
the teacher of any cynicism that may get 
possession of the human spirit. Progress is 
inevitable in a great institution maintained by 
public support; yet, Mr. Benson declares, "it 
is not uncommon to see a man drifting into 
cynicism as he goes on, teaching things in the 
value of which he does not believe, looking upon 
boys as necessary evils, thinking only of how 
to get through his work with as little friction 
and fatigue as possible." The best cure for 
this feeling of despondency is to make a positive 
effort to be cheerful, and to approach our task 
with a conscious sense of duty and enthusiasm. 



CONFESSIONS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 17 

Mr. Benson adds that the educational cynicism 
of to-day may generally be dispelled if we 
possess a large fund of affection and pity and 
patience, strong common-sense, tranquillity, 
and width of view. In the quiet afternoon 
hours, I love to saunter into the Assembly Hall 
of our High School, adorned with memorial 
windows, paintings of our Presidents, and the 
magnificent pipe organ, which every morning 
is vocal with the affection of a prominent 
alumnus for the School. The surroundings are 
all filled with an air of optimism, and seem to 
stand for character in education. The Steel 
Memorial Window is dedicated to the memory 
of a man who had an abiding faith in learning, 
and the portraits on the walls breathe words 
of encouragement to the generations of boys 
who regularly meet here as the years pass by. 
The corridors, halls, and class-rooms also sug- 
gest this same hopeful tendency, and the results 
achieved, while far from perfect, are a constant 
stimulus to more zealous efforts in the future. 
Indeed, the whole educational movement in 
America is encouraging in its progress, and we 
cannot but agree with President Eliot, who, in 
referring to the vast sums of money appropri- 
ated to the public schools, said: "It is, indeed, 
far the most profitable of all forms of public 
expenditure ; and this is true whether one looks 
first to material prosperity, or to mental and 



18 CONFESSIONS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

moral well-being; whether one regards chiefly 
average results, or the results obtained through 
highly gifted individuals." 

How shall we dispel the clouds of intellectual 
cynicism that darken the educational world 
to-day? During the past two years, a tone of 
pessimism has characterized most of the dis- 
cussions on American education. Much space 
has been given in certain magazines to articles 
which fervently deplore the inefficiency of the 
schools, and zealous statisticians have presented 
a formidable array of figures to prove their 
radical assertions. We all admit that nothing 
in this world is perfect, not even the school 
system, but oh, deliver us from these gloomy 
pedagogical experts. Taking the more cheerful 
view of the optimist, we all must agree that the 
American schools are established on the only 
proper basis, that of democracy. The system 
then can be developed and improved only 
through growth, and not by means of revolu- 
tion. The despairing critics generally try to 
show the shortcomings of our schools by the 
comparative method. The educational sys- 
tems of Europe are cited as models of perfec- 
tion, besides which our own are made to appear 
wofully deficient. But a personal observation 
of the schools in England and Germany would 
cure some of our fellow-countrymen of their 
pessimism. Education across the seas is aristo- 



CONFESSIONS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 19 

cratic beyond the most elementary forms, and 
the common people are excluded from even 
free high school privileges; while in nearly all 
the American commonwealths education is 
democratic from the kindergarten to the uni- 
versity. The Volkschule buildings in Germany 
are generally antiquated structures, while in 
our own country one of the most substantial 
improvements to be noted is in the character 
of school architecture. This is true in city and 
country alike, notwithstanding the gross exag- 
geration of the National Education Association, 
that many of the rural schools are not as well 
kept as pigpens. This learned body has re- 
cently delivered another annual diatribe and 
pronounced the schools absolute failures. 

A service of eighteen years convinces me that 
these charges against the schools should not be 
allowed to stand unchallenged. The records of 
the High School extend through a period of 
seventy-five years, and the Historian of the 
Alumni Association has kept in touch with 
throngs of youth who have gone out from its 
halls into various parts of the world. These 
reliable statistics convince me of the following 
facts: The teacher in America has a peculiar 
responsibility not to be found among his 
profession in other parts of the world. He 
renders valuable assistance in the work of 
assimilating the vast foreign element in our 



20 CONFESSIONS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

country. From him the children of aHens learn 
the first lessons in democracy, and in this respect 
he has met with a degree of success that is 
entirely ignored by the critics. The quality 
of instruction given in our schools also merits 
favorable consideration. The teachers as a 
body are professionally trained, and compare 
favorably with their colleagues in other parts 
of the world. The students who leave the com- 
mon schools have at least an average degree of 
intelligence, and acquit themselves creditably 
in the vocations of life. Our universities are 
not mediaeval cloisters, but servants of a prac- 
tical age, sending forth a body of trained men 
into the fields of diplomacy, law, medicine, 
teaching, the mechanical trades, and business. 
In this direction, the University of Pennsylvania 
has been a leader among American educational 
institutions. It stands ready to serve the public 
in any capacity, as the comprehensive statement 
of Dr. J. William White clearly shows. 

For eighteen years, I have witnessed the 
eager groups of freshmen trooping into the 
High School, gazing in wonder upon the new 
scenes around them, as they enter that impor- 
tant scholastic period which lies directly be- 
tween them and the busy world. I might well 
call this the most critical stage of educational 
work; for here great numbers fall by the way 
through lack of preparation in the lower schools 



CONFESSIONS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 21 

and on account of the difficulties of the High 
School curriculum. The schoolmaster has a 
serious responsibility in dealing with these 
immature boys, and he must practise generosity 
and enthusiasm in leading them through the 
trials of the first year. As Benson says, "The 
schoolmaster is there to curb, to correct, and 
also to encourage and to lift. And if he cannot 
feel the solemnity of the charge, 'Feed My 
Lambs,' which he receives as certainly as the 
apostle of old, he is out of place as a school- 
master." In the High School, this attitude 
toward the new boys is rendered more intimate 
through the labors of several committees of the 
Faculty, who not only counsel the students, 
but also regularly communicate with their 
parents. Through this zealous care, the attend- 
ance in the upper classes should increase; but 
no human agency can possibly lead every boy 
through the School to successful graduation. 

As I gaze upon the High School, the imposing 
building, with its costly equipment and superior 
facilities for instruction, the question upper- 
most in my mind is, what are its aims and pur- 
poses in the general scheme of higher education ? 
What is to be its mission in the future? If its 
courses of study are merely to be vocational and 
utilitarian in character, the higher liberal 
knowledge will be in peril of destruction. Dr. 
Andrew F. West says: "There is plenty of 



S2 CONFESSIONS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

money to be had for commercial, industrial, 
and technical education, and it is money very 
well spent, so long as these valuable forms of 
training are well organized for their own ends 
and are not put into relations destructive to 
liberal education. There is little danger that 
utilitarian studies will lack friends and money. 
The danger is to the other studies." The High 
School has always stood for liberal studies, and 
yet it has responded to the demands of the 
times for courses of a practical nature. But in 
establishing commercial and industrial depart- 
ments, the best traditions of scholarship have 
been preserved. Its foundations were laid 
after Alexander Dallas Bache had carefully 
examined the best higher schools of Germany, 
and it has successfully resisted the attacks of 
seventy-five years. At times, the curriculum 
suffered, but the aims of the founders were 
never forgotten, and the School has emerged 
from years of struggle with an ever-widening 
influence in our civic life, and with an equip- 
ment and facilities of instruction unrivalled in 
the country. Commercial schools and voca- 
tional schools have a right to exist; but they 
should not usurp the place of institutions where 
the liberal studies are cultivated. Indeed, one 
of the greatest dangers to modem civilization 
is the commercial ideal which engrosses the 
life of the entire world, and threatens to destroy 



CONFESSIONS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 28 

the solid educational structure. The real 
dangers are set forth by Dr. Andrew F. West 
in his book, ''The Graduate College of Prince- 
ton," as follows: ''The truth that all high- 
minded knowledge is in the best sense useful, 
is torn and twisted into the half-truth of 
'service,' the doctrine that only the knowledge 
of obvious use is worth having. Under this 
notion historical, social, and political studies 
come to be pursued as a kind of 'contemporary 
topics' of 'live interest,' the study of literature, 
even of our own, is narrowed to the most recent 
periods, thus shutting off depth of background, 
philosophy descends into the nursery of 'child 
psychology,' and the great fundamental sciences 
are neglected except in their most practical 
applications. Other knowledge is of 'no use.' 
Wherever this spirit enters professional schools 
it tends to modify injuriously the sciences 
which imderlie the professions, so that, for 
example, pure mathematics is thought in some 
quarters to be unsuitable for the engineer and 
pure biology to be unsuitable as a foundation 
for medicine. 'Modified' mathematics or 
'modified' biology is the resulting hybrid. And 
hybrids are sterile. No great wave of utilitarian 
influence has ever swept unchecked into uni- 
versities without disaster to liberal studies." 

If life is worth more than a mere living, then 
the High School must continue on its mission 



24 CONFESSIONS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

of advancing learning for its own sake, and not 
for immediate utilitarian ends. It must seek 
to teach those general fundamental principles 
which underlie and connect all vocations and 
pursuits. In the past, "hybrid knowledge," as 
Dr. West calls it, has had no place in the cur- 
riculum, and in the future, if the character of 
the School is to be maintained, truth must be 
sought for its own sake alone. I believe the 
School will continue to insist on high intellectual 
ideals, physical well-being, and character among 
the students. Intellectual ideals cannot survive 
in a school unless the members of the Faculty 
have an abiding interest in good books and 
possess a strong enthusiasm for some scholarly 
pursuit. In this regard, the High School is 
fortunate; for our worthy President, represent- 
ing the best culture and scholarship, has been 
a constant inspiration to professors and students 
alike. Intellectual ideals must be preserved in 
the School, and rigorous studies will not be 
removed from the curriculum to make way for 
hybrid courses; but at the same time, youthful 
enjoyment should be encouraged, so that the 
boys will attack the difficulties of the classics 
and mathematics with as much interest as they 
display in the hardest game on the athletic 
field. While emphasizing the importance of 
high intellectual ideals in the School, teachers 
should endeavor to cultivate the original talents 



CONFESSIONS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 25 

among the boys. Lavisse, the historian, says, 
''All uniformity of education is dangerous, 
because individual divergence is necessary for 
the progress of human activity." This philo- 
sophic writer claims that Rome destroyed the 
individual genius of nations through her con- 
quests, and that when the public life of the 
Empire ceased, Italy, Gaul, and Spain were 
unable to become nations until after the arrival 
of the barbarians, and after several centuries 
of experiments amid violence and calamity. 
As the imperial idea crushes out originality 
among nations, so school systems built upon 
mere conventions are the foe to individual 
genius. And yet, "standardization" is the 
cry everywhere among those in charge of edu- 
cational administration ; but these zealous advo- 
cates of the levelling process should be made 
conscious of the withering effect of uniformity 
among communities and nations. Lavisse, in 
his "Political History of Europe," raises some 
questions, which those educators who believe 
in mere standards and conventions should 
weigh and consider. * * But how does it happen, ' ' 
says this historian, "that the countries which 
Rome did not conquer, or did not long have 
under her sway, now hold such a prominent 
place in the world; that they exhibit so much 
originality and such complete confidence in 
their future ? Is it only because, having existed 



26 CONFESSIONS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

a shorter time, they are entitled to a longer 
future ? Or, perchance, did Rome leave behind 
her certain habits of mind, intellectual and 
moral qualities, which impede and limit activ- 
ity? These are insolvable questions, like all 
similar ones whose solution it would be impor- 
tant for us to know. At any rate, let us not be 
too prompt to pass judgment in this matter. 
It is not certain that Caesar's conquest of 
Vercingetorix was a blessing to the world." 
These words have an ominous significance, 
coming from the historian of a country whose 
educational system has been standardized to a 
most imperial form. As imperialism in govern- 
ment finally breaks down with its own weight, 
so in education, the same process will destroy 
genius and original mental gifts, and finally 
lead to intellectual revolution. 

I mentioned physical well-being as the second 
great subject in high school administration. 
For many years, the old High School took an 
interest in popular athletics; but in the new 
building physical training was placed on a 
scientific basis and provided not only with a 
well-equipped gymnasium, but also with an 
athletic field of generous proportions. The 
athletic spirit has taken possession of the High 
School as never before; in fact, it is sweeping 
with a wave of popularity throughout the 
world. It seems to be one of the national ideals, 



CONFESSIONS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 27 

a fact that is deeply deplored by many critics, 
who claim that the sports of the field and 
gymnasium interfere with culture and scholar- 
ship, and divert the attention of the students 
from the more solid pursuits of learning. The 
subject of athletic interest, when viewed from 
an impartial point of view, leads to the inevi- 
table conclusion that there must be some good 
in a movement to which a whole nation attaches 
so much importance. Commenting on this 
matter, Arthur C. Benson says, ''It was char- 
acteristic of Athens at the time of her brightest 
political eminence, when her writers were 
pondering with careless ease works which have 
given a literary standard to the most keenly 
intellectual periods ever since, and are at once 
the wonder and despair of creative minds, to 
attach a similar importance to athletic pursuits. 
It is not therefore a state of things inconsistent 
with high political and intellectual fervor." 
Physical training in the gymnasium of the High 
School now needs no defenders and apologists, 
although, when first introduced, it was looked 
upon by some as an experiment of doubtful 
value. History confirms its importance in the 
life of a nation, when after 1806 the patriots 
of Germany began to arouse a sentiment for 
the regeneration of Prussia. Old Father Jahn 
invented modern gymnastics, when he estab- 
lished the Gray Cloister Gymnasium near 



28 CONFESSIONS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

Berlin, and also put up apparatus in the parks 
and public places, where physical training was 
accompanied by moral and political teaching, 
and immediate effects were seen in the patriotic 
impulse that seized the youth of the land. 
Father Jahn also opened a gymnasium at Jena, 
where he received a degree from the University. 
His influence soon reached every part of Prussia, 
and glowing patriotism took the place of 
national decay. His followers even suggested 
allowing a strip of wilderness to grow up be- 
tween France and Germany and peopling it 
with wild beasts. The gymnasium was a power- 
ful factor in redeeming the fatherland, and 
Jahn's pupils were inspired with the sentiment 
of the poet Arndt : 

That is the German's fatherland, 
Where wrath pursues the foreign band, 
Where every Frank is held a foe. 
And Germans all as brothers glow. 

That is the land. 
All Germany's thy fatherland. 

The charge that athletic interest shows a 
tendency to frivolity and pleasure-seeking in 
the nation can scarcely be maintained. On the 
other hand, foreign observers are amazed at 
the restless activity and boundless energy of 
the American people, who not only perform 
an unusual amount of routine work, but also 
undertake vast constructive schemes that are 



CONFESSIONS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 29 

the wonder of the world. Not content with 
this, the cry to-day is for still more efficiency, 
and there is danger of reducing man to a human 
machine. More work is also the demand of 
the schools; therefore, some wholesome form 
of amusement is needed to preserve the personal 
equation in man and save him from the fate of 
a mere grind. My observations lead me to 
believe that athletics have a social value, 
stimulating among the boys the spirit of com- 
panionship. They afford a means for physical 
exercise, thereby draining off the superfluous 
energy which might otherwise be expended in 
the School to the destruction of discipline and 
good order. A united school spirit can also be 
developed through athletics, and there is an 
opportunity to display in the games moral 
qualities of a high order. The spirit of the age, 
then, is in favor of physical training and athletic 
sports. We see this not only in school and 
college, but in every walk of life. It manifests 
itself in another form in summer camps and in the 
Boy Scout movement, in Young Men's Christian 
Association work, and in various other organi- 
zations. People live more in the open, sleep 
in the open, and obey the poet's injunction to 

Go forth, under the open sky, and Hst 
To Nature's teachings. 

George M. Trevelyan's delightful essay on 
''Walking" should appeal to every lover of 



30 CONFESSIONS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

physical exercise and athletic sports. He said: 
"I have two doctors, my left leg and my right. 
When body and mind are out of gear (and those 
twin parts of me live at such close quarters that 
the one always catches melancholy from the 
other) I know that I have only to call in my 
doctors and I shall be well again." Here, then, 
we have the solution to the whole matter. 
Apply Mr. Trevelyan's principle of walking to all 
physical exercise, in school, college, and the busy 
world; make it, under proper regulations, and 
above all else, a tonic for mind and body alike, 
and then the physical, mental, and moral benefits 
derived therefrom will become apparent to all. 
I gaze back in contemplation through eighteen 
busy years in the High School, and the forms 
of a host of noble youths cross the horizon of 
my memory. Their later careers of usefulness 
impress me with the thought that character- 
building is, above everything else, the mission 
of the High School and of all similar institu- 
tions in the land. These schools are free to all, 
and the boys, therefore, live in a democracy of 
learning, where they are taught to respect each 
other's rights, and thereby acquire the habits 
of good citizens. The pursuit of knowledge 
and the struggles on the athletic field develop 
moral qualities of a high order, and the friendly 
competition of the class-room tempers the spirit 
of selfishness which is often too common in the 



CONFESSIONS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 31 

world. My observations convince me that boys 
in general are not laggards who shirk their tasks ; 
for I have seen too many examples of courage, 
sacrifice, endurance, self-control, generosity, hon- 
esty, fairness, and calmness in defeat as well as in 
victory, as they attacked the rigorous studies of 
the curriculum. The High School has always in- 
sisted upon character and quality in work, and 
the student body has caught this spirit and car- 
ried it forth into the busy world. What a brother- 
hood, skilled in the arts and sciences, they form, 
an unselfish body of workers, known of all men 
and in all lands by their efficiency and accom- 
plishments ! I have seen comparatively few boys 
fall on account of temptation and moral lapses. 
Indeed, how many have been saved through the 
good-heartedness of our President and by the 
aid of friendly committees of the Faculty ! 

Schools grow venerable in years, but they 
should remain youthful in service. This spirit 
must necessarily be imparted to the institution 
by the schoolmaster, who is a useful servant 
only so long as he has an abiding hope and 
interest in his work. As an eminent writer 
says, the teacher must rule and stimulate him- 
self in order to govern and interest others. My 
purpose in writing this essay is to encourage 
men to continue in their profession, and to 
impress upon their minds the real problem 
which they must solve. I wish to assure other 



32 CONFESSIONS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

readers that I have not endeavored to antago- 
nize any particular type or form of schools, but 
simply to emphasize as forcibly as possible the 
fundamental principles and essentials of higher 
education. The subject is of vital importance 
at present on account of the intense national 
earnestness which America shows in her schools, 
an earnestness that should invite strong men 
into the service; for the future is bright with 
hope and rich with promise. 



COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 



COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 



WENONAH MILITARY ACADEMY 
WENONAH, NEW JERSEY 

JUNE II, 1914 

June is the month of commencements, and 
it is an old established custom to offer advice 
to the happy graduates, who are about to pro- 
ceed to college or go out into the serious duties 
of life. It must be a great satisfaction to the 
graduates to-day who have completed the pre- 
scribed course of this School, and are now saying 
farewell as students to the institution forever. 
But memories of the years passed here will 
twine around the heart throughout life, and 
your affection for this place will grow more 
intense with fleeting time. The difficulties of 
mastering hard lessons will fade from the mind, 
and as later years bring to you their achieve- 
ments, the days of youthful school life will 
loom up cheerfully upon your vision as the 
happiest epoch of your existence. It is a source 
of pleasure and great profit for a man to have 
his name enrolled with the alumni body of a 
good school. While our American schools lack 
the antiquity and historical fame of the institu- 
tions of the old world, they are imbued with 

35 



36 COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 

the spirit of progress of this new Republic, and 
while they lack the cloistered air of the mediseval 
times, they still are centres of culture, and, at 
the same time, train the pupils for the practical 
affairs of the western world. The founders 
must have consulted the oracle in selecting the 
site of this Military Academy, for here kind 
nature smiles upon you with all her loveliness, 
and yet, with Philadelphia as a centre, you lie 
within a radius of a great throbbing population 
of more than two million people. With your 
beautiful rural surroundings, you still have at 
hand all the resources of a great metropolis 
which make for intellectual progress and indus- 
trial life. And as a word of encouragement for 
the future of your School, I may be pardoned 
for the remark that within an hour's ride from 
Philadelphia lie the most prosperous fitting 
schools in the United States. 

Education has grown to be the leading interest 
in America. Public schools with their liberal 
appropriations of money, and private institu- 
tions with their rich endowments now reach 
the masses in every part of the land, and the 
return is more satisfactory than from any other 
form of expenditure. Education is a popular 
movement, and the people have faith in it as 
a means of solving the difficult problems that 
rise from time to time in our national life. 



COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 37 

Fortunate, indeed, and thrice blest are you 
who have thus been able to enjoy this environ- 
ment of culture and scholarship. Yours have 
been peculiar advantages and opportunities; 
but great also will be your responsibilities. 
American education trains the youth to take 
their places in the most highly organized 
democracy the world has ever seen. Our 
government demands the services of every 
citizen to help preserve these institutions from 
decay; and we should remember that the most 
insidious danger to the Republic lies in the 
careless and selfish attitude of the people 
toward the welfare of the State. 

It is difficult to say anything new and inter- 
esting at a school commencement. I fear that 
any remarks that I may offer on an educational 
theme would be very trite, indeed. But this 
occasion encourages me to refer especially to 
one among the many excellent features of your 
Academy, and that is the course in military 
training. We do not hope for war, and we 
know that peace hath her victories no less re- 
nowned than war. Likewise, peace demands 
the same positive virtues no less than war, and 
as a great nation, pursuing our course to a 
higher destiny, the same qualities should in- 
spire us that distinguish great soldiers in the 
camp and on the field of battle. The civilian, 
no less than the soldier, should be trained 



38 COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 

into the habit of obedience, of reverence, of 
independence, and of honesty. ''Stranger, tell 
the Lacedaemonians that we lie here in obedi- 
ence to their laws." This was the simple 
inscription, composed by Simonides, to com- 
memorate the heroic and conscious devotion of 
the faithful band of Leonidas at Thermopylae. 
As Dr. Lieber says: "It was not merely the 
happy conceit of an individual; it was the true 
expression of the public spirit. Obedience to 
the laws implies a true loyalty to the State, 
and we should all learn that it is a privilege of 
men to obey laws, and a delight to obey good 
ones." Again, he remarks: "Man is wholly 
man only in society; society is what it ought 
to be only through laws ; laws are virtually laws 
only when obeyed; therefore, man's destiny 
requires obedience to the laws." That eminent 
publicist, Dr. Lieber, has contributed a valu- 
able and safe guide for the American youth in 
his '' Political Ethics," and I repeat the sub- 
stance of his observations on the value of 
military training in the sentences that follow. 
Military training also stimulates in man the 
spirit of reverence, by which he feels linked to 
his fellow-men in a serious and earnest contem- 
plation of all things, striving to know their real 
character and connection with life. The belief 
that military training may lead to blind sub- 
missiveness is only to be feared where education 



COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 39 

is imperfect or liberty at a low ebb. On the 
other hand, the soldier life develops the quality 
of independence, for it includes the love of 
justice, of right, of acting manfully by prin- 
ciple, of disdaining popularity when need be, of 
holding up the head in spite of the heavy blows 
which fate may inflict, of being bravely yet 
calmly a true man. Likewise, this training 
emphasizes the habit of honesty, even in the 
smallest details and trifles, both as to truth 
and property. It is not sufficient that the 
young learn to shun pilfering, but it is necessary 
that a sacred regard for property, in all its 
manifestations, be early instilled into their 
souls. That greatest aim of all moral educa- 
tion, to make men just and true, kind and 
self-controlled, is also the most important edu- 
cation for the State. Let men be just and true, 
and what is not gained? For the soldier and 
civilian alike, the motto should be : 

Be just, and fear not: 
Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, 
Thy God's and truth's. 

Equipped with this happy combination of 
military training and culture, the graduates of 
this School should be prepared to go forth and 
attack the problems of life with energy and 
enthusiasm. Some years ago, Arthur C. Benson 
wrote a book, ''From a College Window," in 



40 COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 

which he vigorously criticised the system of 
education in the EngHsh higher schools and 
universities. He said that he failed to see the 
students flinging themselves with ardor into 
modem literature, history, philosophy, science, 
and practical subjects. But on the other hand, 
he said: "I see instead, intellectual cynicism, 
intellectual apathy, an absorbing love of physi- 
cal exercise, an appetite for material pleasure, 
a distaste for books and thought." This criti- 
cism might apply to an aristocratic country, 
where education is a luxury of the privileged 
class, but in democratic America, even the 
higher schools are within reach of the masses, 
and these institutions have suited their courses 
to meet the demands of a practical age. More- 
over, an experience of many years with young 
men in school convinces me that they do not in 
this country form a leisure class, but that they 
are anxious to get out into the world and apply 
their knowledge to their various callings and 
pursuits. Our educated men are generally 
eager for action and ready to answer the de- 
mands made upon them in public and private 
Hfe. 

The militant and aggressive spirit should be 
found in the student body of this School. The 
land of the strenuous life is beckoning men of 
this type, and careers of usefulness are opening 
to those who are ready and efficient. In this 



COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 41 

connection, let us remember the words of St. 
Paul, the militant hero of the ancient world, 
who, when determined on journeying to Jeru- 
salem, declared, '*I am ready," although per- 
secution, and even death might await him. In 
this day of religious freedom, men are not per- 
secuted for their faith; but it is expected of 
educated men that they shall be constantly 
ready for every serious duty that awaits them. 
The scholars are the minute men of the world, 
responding to service in a thousand lines when- 
ever called, and if they fail when summoned, 
a serious indictment is framed against the 
whole educational structure. The Minute Men 
of the Revolution, how their deeds appeal to 
the imagination, even after the lapse of one 
hundred and forty years! They went from 
the plough to the battle-field at a moment's call, 
and by the bridge at Concord their glory is 
perpetuated by a statue, and commemorated 
by Emerson, in the lines : 

By the rude bridge that arched the flood 
Their flag to April breeze unfurled. 

Here once the embattled farmers stood, 
And fired the shot heard round the world. 

This is the type of men that we need to-day 
in every walk of life. As the troops were ready 
at a moment's call in the Revolution, the Civil 
War, the War with Spain, and at Vera Cruz, 



42 COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 

SO in days of peace the same spirit should 
animate the citizen in the performance of every 
serious duty. Admiral Fletcher's report on 
the efficiency and readiness of our naval force 
at Vera Cruz should not only be a source of 
pride to our army and navy, but it should be 
an example to every citizen to respond to the 
call to patriotic duty, and to render efficient 
service in the professional and industrial 
world. 

Likewise, military training should inspire the 
student with a love of unselfish service for man- 
kind. In this country, the soldier expects no 
personal gain. On the other hand, in war his 
only hope is either a costly sacrifice for his 
country, or in case of survival, to receive the 
praise of a grateful people. The days of the 
mercenary are over, and armies are now re- 
cruited from the best blood of the nation, and 
called into action only to defend great moral 
principles. This idea of service has pervaded 
the sphere of government, and the individual 
cannot escape his share in the general contri- 
bution to the good of the masses. A hundred 
years ago, Jefferson would have the national 
government merely perform police powers and 
preserve peace among the States and with 
foreign powers ; but to-day we expect the authori- 
ties at Washington to develop many lines of 
social and economic service. There is no doubt 



COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 43 

that the extension of these Federal activities 
has made us one of the most happy, wealthy, 
respectable, and powerful nations that ever 
inhabited the globe. Besides, if we read the 
platform of the Progressive Party, and ''The 
New Nationalism," we find that a large ele- 
ment of our population would have the govern- 
ment go still farther into unexplored fields of 
service. Such is the unmistakable tendency 
of the age. 

As an important part of our education, we 
must learn that the individual cannot evade 
this unselfish service to his fellow-men. We 
are living under changed conditions. When the 
Federal Constitution was adopted, we were a 
rural nation, with a population widely scattered; 
but now urban conditions prevail, and more 
than forty per cent, of our people live in cities. 
Our social relations are close, and it is an im- 
portant fact to remember that our educational 
stewardship will be largely measured by the 
extent of our unselfish service to mankind. 
Thus, by the very conditions under which we 
live, we labor not for ourselves alone, but for 
all mankind. The physician may become rich 
in his profession ; but through the discoveries in 
medical science, he is a benefactor to the human 
race. The successful lawyer, it is true, receives 
large fees; but through the ages, he has helped 
to develop that science which binds large com- 



44 COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 

munities together into nations, and sacredly 
guards property and human rights. The college 
professor no longer lives exclusively among his 
books, but by the very nature of our civiliza- 
tion, his active service now extends beyond 
the college walls. Of the Faculty of Wisconsin 
University, more than forty are engaged in 
public administrative positions, and professors 
direct the work of nineteen State boards and 
commissions. Likewise, the church, forgetting 
theological differences, is making itself felt as 
never before in the social uplift of humanity. 
It is assisting in fulfilling the divine promise, 
even in this world, that the people may have 
life and have it more abundantly in all that 
pertains to a general diffusion of wealth, happi- 
ness, education, improved civic and rural con- 
ditions, good government, and righteousness in 
private and public life. The educated man must 
be ready to join in this movement for the com- 
mon good of mankind. The school furnishes 
the necessary mental equipment, and directs 
the mind into a proper attitude toward the 
world. Then the student must go forth with 
the thought that it is not enough to know; but 
he must make the truth prevail. One of the 
greatest blessings of school work is, that in the 
friendly rivalry for academic honors, the heart- 
less competition of life is greatly tempered, and 
the boys learn that in the larger world, the 



COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 45 

pick and the pen meet in the brotherhood of 
man. Truly, we learn in school the social 
value of the lines of Burns, 

A man's a man for a' that and a' that. 

In this connection, we all might turn with 
profit to Arnold Bennett's little book, ''The 
Human Machine," a work that emphasizes a 
better knowledge of the mind and brain, and 
of the art of right living. I should like to 
urge the graduates to read this book; for 
there is much truth in Bennett's remark that 
people generally reach the age of fifty-five 
before they begin to live with professional skill. 
We finish our lives as amateurs, just as we 
began them, and when the machine creaks and 
refuses to obey the steering wheel, we say, 
''It can't be helped. It will be all the same a 
hundred years hence." The author's thought 
is that we have been using the human machine 
without understanding it, and that in school 
we should learn to know the mind and body, 
as well as to acquire a proper knowledge of 
the art of living. Even at the age of fifty, we 
are apt to know more about the draught of a 
chimney, or of the Greeks and Babylonians, 
than we do of the human mind. Truly, in the 
schools, we should be impressed with Sir 
William Hamilton's remark, "In the world 



46 COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 

there is nothing great but man, and in man 
there is nothing great but mind," and the 
sacred record places him above all other works. 

Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy 
hands; thou hast put all things under his feet. 

The knowledge of ourselves and of the art 
of right living transcends in importance all the 
accumulated learning of the books. If the 
sage of Greece were living to-day, he would 
repeat his maxim, ''Know thyself," with ever- 
increasing emphasis; and Marcus • Aurelius 
might well remind us that "the perfecting of 
life is a power residing in the soul" ; but to-day, 
under changed conditions, abstract specula- 
tions must become vital action; that power 
residing in the soul must become a living force, 
and along with knowledge of self, dedicated to 
a fruitful service for mankind. In perfecting 
this art of living, let us then remember that it 
does not lie in bookish culture, nor in contem- 
plating the achievements of past civilizations. 
Books are a true delight and a comfort to the 
scholar, and they contain the accumulated 
sources of knowledge. But the art of proper 
living in this age when populations, communi- 
ties, and nations are drawn so close together, 
is to establish harmonious relations with all 
mankind. Nations now accomplish this through 
treaties, international law, and in arbitration as 



COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 47 

a substitute for war. Individuals must assume 
the same attitude through kindness, mutual 
sympathy, and a recognition of rights and duties 
to each other. This spirit of service and unsel- 
fishness we must, therefore, carry from the 
schools into life, and its constant practice will 
destroy the antagonisms and still the jarring 
sounds that so often disturb our social peace. 
Then the comforting hope of "Peace on earth; 
good will toward men," will become a living re- 
ality, and then this great nation will throb as with 
one heart, and act as with one mind in moving 
towards the higher destiny that awaits us. 

But it is now time to end these serious 
reflections, offered to you, I must confess, in a 
rather desultor}^ fashion. I sincerely hope that 
the members of the graduating class may have 
all the joys that go with scholarship, and 
possess the manly virtues that I have empha- 
sized, in dealing with the responsibilities of 
life. Like Theseus of old, you have been 
furnished with the weapons to fight the battles 
of life. Two roads, the easy and the difficult, 
lay before him on his way to Athens. He chose 
the rugged path beset with many dangers, but 
properly armed and with a resolute spirit, he 
conquered every foe and reached his journey's 
end in safety. It is not my thought that you 
should be engaged in constant struggle, but I 
believe that serious duties and responsibilities 



48 COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 

you will not avoid for an existence of mere 
ease and comfort. We need not refer to classical 
examples of the heroic type of man; for our 
own history is rich with this noble quality 
which has done so much to develop American 
civilization. It has always been a conspicuous 
trait of manhood in this country, and our faith 
in you is such that we are confident that as 
you go out into life you will preserve all the 
best traditions of American character. I sin- 
cerely trust that the bright expectations of 
parents and friends may be abundantly realized, 
and that these young men, the pride of the 
home and the hope of the future, may complete 
the happiness of all interested in their welfare, 
with successful careers and rich accomplish- 
ments. The debt of gratitude will then be fully 
repaid, and the Military Academy honored and 
encouraged in its services to the community 
and country at large. 



ROBERT ELLIS THOMPSON 
AN APPRECIATION 



ROBERT ELLIS THOMPSON 

AN APPRECIATION OF HIS TWENTY YEARS' SERVICE AS 

PRESIDENT OF THE CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL, 

PHILADELPHIA 

FEBRUARY 26, I914 

The month of February, 19 14, has a special 
significance to Philadelphians in the seventy- 
fifth anniversary of the Central High School. 
The twentieth anniversary of Dr. Robert Ellis 
Thompson's presidency of the School, occurring 
at the same time, gives an additional interest 
to the occasion. His connection with the School 
is contemporary with a great period of educa- 
tional expansion and reform in this country. 
With a rich experience of more than twenty 
years as a university professor, he brought to 
the Central High School a combination of rare 
culture and liberal ideas without a parallel in 
any modern secondary school. With the hope- 
ful characteristics of the Celtic race, he has 
constantly held out to the Faculty and student 
body a brighter future for the School, and his 
presidency is a remarkable epoch, the history 
of which will be adequately recorded in years 
to come. Institutions take character from the 
men who labor in their founding and history, 
and this is true of schools as it is of political 
societies. Doctor Thompson's constant insist- 

51 



52 ROBERT ELLIS THOMPSON 

ence on culture in Faculty and students alike 
has left an indelible impression on the character 
of the Central High School. 

On his accession as President of the School, 
Doctor Thompson at once began to introduce 
many reasonable incentives to excellent work 
among the students. He devised the plan of 
exempting those boys from examination who 
had done well in their studies during the year, 
and good results were at once observed. He 
established the Committee on Discipline to 
deal with offences among the boys, and the 
meetings of this body every Thursday have 
.been a feature of High School administration 
for twenty years. Another feature of discipline 
introduced by Doctor Thompson is the Con- 
ference Committee, in which the student body 
and Faculty are represented, to which all matters 
are referred which may improve the relations 
of the students to the School. These means of 
discipline were prompted by the spirit of fair 
play, which has been so notably conspicuous in 
Doctor Thompson's administration of school 
affairs. While imposing high standards of 
scholarship and a rigorous curriculum upon the 
students, the boys have at all times been treated 
with a liberal spirit, and the serious work of 
the class-rooms has been conducted with reason- 
able methods, free from the drudgery so often 
to be found in the schools of the fathers. 



ROBERT ELLIS THOMPSON 53 

A fresh impetus to secondary education was 
aroused in Philadelphia with the occupancy of 
the new Central High School building in Novem- 
ber, 1902. In this magnificent temple of learn- 
ing the Central High School was given a new 
opportunity for expansion, and rapid growth 
immediately followed. Our institution thus 
became a mother of high schools ; for in response 
to the popular demand that arose from every 
part of the City, several district high schools 
have been established and additional ones are 
being projected. Doctor Thompson generously 
gave counsel in the organization of these new 
schools, and impressed upon the authorities 
the necessity of liberal courses of study and 
ample equipment in each of the additional 
high schools. 

The Central High School, estabHshed in the 
new building, entered upon a fresh period of 
growth and usefulness. Its advance has been 
marvelous, not merely in the numbers of the 
students, but also in the expansion of the de- 
partments. Thus, the department of commerce 
has developed into a high school of commerce. 
The department of pedagogy has grown into 
the school of pedagogy, and has gone forth 
like a Greek colony into a territory of its own. 
In order to insure growth, every institution 
must be possessed with a high ideal which it 
seeks to attain. Doctor iThompson's constant 



54 ROBERT ELLIS THOMPSON 

ambition has been to extend the course of study 
by adding additional years, so as to increase the 
value of the degrees conferred. It should be 
remarked that this ideal has been a permanent 
influence for good with the Faculty, the members 
having ever before them the possibility of an 
institution with collegiate rank, in which their 
sphere of influence would be considerably en- 
larged. This ideal has also been a source of 
inspiration to the professors to pursue original 
research and authorship in their various depart- 
ments, and thus make contributions to the 
stores of knowledge. Doctor Thompson has 
frequently set an example to the Faculty in this 
direction by his own publications, and he has 
encouraged the professors not merely to be 
teachers, but also to engage in productive 
scholarship. 

In Doctor Thompson, it may be truly said 
that the professors of the Central High School 
have ever been in the presence of a master who 
has unselfishly given them of his stores of 
knowledge. The mere mention of a good book 
by a professor suggests to the Doctor the text 
for a learned discourse, and seated about the 
table in the Faculty Room, we have enjoyed 
the rare pleasure of listening to his profitable 
talks on the subject at hand. As members of 
the Faculty, we feel that we have been attending 
school with Doctor Thompson as our teacher. 



ROBERT ELLIS THOMPSON 55 

The chief elements in a great school are not 
the petty details of administration; but more 
important is the rare presence of a great mind 
with ample stores of knowledge. So much 
time is wasted to-day by school authorities in 
gathering statistics, and in trivial matters 
which have no permanent value. But the few 
great schools of the world are what great minds 
have made them, and ordinary matters of 
administration are justly subordinated in schools 
of this type. A history of twenty years of the 
Central High School will not deal with the daily 
routine of administration, but with the ideals 
of the School, which, we hope, will in the future 
meet with a good measure of realization. 

The impressions made by Doctor Thompson 
on the student body of our School will grow 
stronger with the passing years. These are, 
after all, the enduring foundations which the 
teacher lays. Doctor Thompson's influence in 
the High School extends far beyond the ordi- 
nary pedagogical limits. The feeling manner in 
which he reads the Scriptures in the morning 
exercises, and the eloquent addresses to the 
boys on these occasions, are a power for good 
which cannot be forgotten. His baccalaureate 
sermons to the graduating classes are marked 
by a true spiritual dignity, and his regular lec- 
tures on ethics and economics are an unusual 
treat for students of a high-school grade. In 



56 ROBERT ELLIS THOMPSON 

referring to the vast sums of money expended 
on public schools in America, Dr. Eliot declares : 
"It is, indeed, far the most profitable of all the 
forms of public expenditure; and this is true 
whether one looks first to material prosperity, 
or to mental and moral well-being ; whether one 
regards chiefly average results, or the results 
obtained through highly gifted individuals." 
A review of twenty years of the Central High 
School confirms our belief in Dr. Eliot's con- 
clusions, and convinces us that the labors of 
these years have not been in vain, but that the 
reward has been rich and abundant. 



RANKE AND HIS PUPILS 



RANKE AND HIS PUPILS* 

In writing the preface to the fourth volume 
of his history, Gibbon said: "I shall content 
myself with renewing my serious protestation, 
that I have always endeavored to draw from 
the fountain-head; that my curiosity, as well 
as a sense of duty, has always urged me to 
study the originals ; and that, if they have some- 
times eluded my search, I have carefully marked 
the secondary evidence, on whose faith a passage 
or a fact was reduced to depend." This was 
written in the eighteenth century, when history 
in its modern sense was at its lowest ebb, and 
my friend, H. Morse Stephens, declares that 
Gibbon was the first to foreshadow the attitude 
of the historian of to-day. Prof. Stephens truly 
states that others than Gibbon, and before his 
time, may have held the views and practised 
the methods of modern historians ; but Niebuhr 
and Ranke not only formulated these ideas and 
put them into practice, but they founded the 
modern scientific school of history. It was 
Niebuhr 's great ambition to write a history of 
Rome which should end where Gibbon began; 
but his task remained unaccomplished, for he 

*A review of certain chapters in G. P. Gooch's "History 
and Historians of the Nineteenth Century." 

59 



60 RANKE AND HIS PUPILS 

never got farther than to the Punic Wars. 
Prof. Stephens, in describing his services to 
modem students, claims that in rejecting the 
fables of Livy, and showing why they were to 
be rejected, he showed the way for all later 
historians. 

Bartholdt George Niebuhr was a Colossus 
among the scholars of the modern world, and 
I have read and re-read with pleasure a little 
book, ''Conversations with Niebuhr," by 
Francis Lieber during his residence in Rome, 
when Niebuhr was gathering material for his 
history. This little book should be in the 
possession of every professor of history; for 
it reveals the vast learning of the founder of 
modem historical method, and describes his 
patient and diligent researches among the ruins 
of Rome for reliable source material. Ranke 
followed Niebuhr and farther developed his 
critical methods, applying them to all his 
voluminous works, and impressing upon stu- 
dents the necessity of discovering how things 
actually happened. He claimed that, first and 
last, the duty of the historian was to search for 
truth, and that all possible material must be 
sifted out with trained and critical judgment. 
G. P. Gooch, in his "History and Historians 
of the Nineteenth Century," has given us an 
elaborate treatment of the influence of Ranke 
upon the scientific tendency of history, and 



RANKE AND HIS PUPILS 61 

how he was instrumental in taking the subject 
out of the realm of philosophy and literature. 
Mr. Gooch declares that while Ranke's prede- 
cessors emphasized politics, law, religion, or 
patriotism, he was the first German to pursue 
history for no purpose but its own. He ex- 
pected no professional knowledge from his 
readers, and never wrote for specialists. He 
practised moderation and restraint, and his works 
are a triumph of fairness and impartiality. He 
outlived all rivalry and antagonism, and heard 
Ameth declare before the assembled historians 
that he alone among all prose writers had 
furnished a masterpiece to every country. 

In reviewing this scientific trend of history, 
we may turn with profit to George M. Trevel- 
yan's recent work, ''Clio, a Muse, and Other 
Essays." Mr. Trevelyan is not entirely satis- 
fied with this new treatment of history, and 
he sees the popular influence of the subject 
greatly diminished since it was proclaimed a 
science for specialists, and not literature for 
the common reader of books. While, in the 
early Victorian age, historians did much to 
form the ideas of the new era, to-day the thought 
of the young generation is derived from novelists 
and playwrights. Thus, he beholds with sorrow 
a constant demand for books like the ''Criminal 
Queens of History," and spicy memoirs lightly 
served up for the general appetite, while 



62 RANKE AND HIS PUPILS 

"serious history is a sacred thing pinnacled 
afar on frozen heights of science, not to be 
approached save after a long novitiate." At 
the same time, he notes that ''The Cambridge 
Modern History" is bought b}^ the yard to 
decorate bookshelves, and like the ''Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica," its mere presence in the 
library is enough. And yet, Mr. Trevelyan 
admits that while Ranke and his successors 
banished the prophets and bards from their 
seats among the mighty, and established a new 
order of priesthood among the historians, there 
has been a vast gain in the deeper academic 
life of the nation. While history is regarded 
as literature no longer, it has acquired an impor- 
tant standing in higher institutions, and this 
he regards as one of the most important facts 
in modern education. Mr. Trevelyan offers a 
happy suggestion that all historical scholars 
can adopt without sacrificing truth or scientific 
treatment. He would have them write their 
works not merely for the perusal of brother 
historians, but for the best portion of the gen- 
eral public. He claims that fine English prose 
can be devoted to the serious exposition of fact 
and argument, and in this respect, it has a 
glory all its own. May we not all profit by 
Mr. Trevelyan's closing words: "To read 
sustained and magnificent historical narrative 
educates the mind and the character ; some even, 



RANKE AND HIS PUPILS 63 

whose natures, craving the definite, seldom 
respond to poetry, find in such writing the 
highest pleasure that they know. Unfortu- 
nately, the historians of literary genius have 
never been plentiful, and we are told that there 
will never be any more. Certainly we shall 
have to wait for them, but let us wish for them 
and work for them. If we confess that we lack 
something, and cease to make a merit of our 
chief defect, if we encourage the rising genera- 
tion to work at the art of construction and 
narrative as a part of the historian's task, we 
may at once get a better level of historical 
writing, and our children may live to enjoy 
modern Gibbons, judicious Carlyles, and 
sceptical Macaulays." 

As to the particular subject of my paper, 
Ranke was bom in the year 1795, and was 
educated at Leipsic University, where he 
studied theology and classical philology, and 
also devoted much attention to the ancient 
historians. He taught philology for seven 
years in the gymnasium at Frankfort on the 
Oder, and was finally convinced by Niebuhr 
that historians could exist in the modern world. 
His professional duties as a teacher also had 
much to do with turning his attention to history, 
and his first work, ''History of the Romance 
and Teutonic Peoples," was written for his 
own satisfaction rather than for the public. 



64 RANKE AND HIS PUPILS 

In this history, Ranke revealed his great moder- 
ation and tranquillity of mind in treating the 
larger themes of the past. He was strongly 
attracted by the human side of history, and 
declared that it was so sweet to revel in the 
wealth of all the centuries, to meet all the heroes 
face to face, to live through everything again. 
He inclined toward the personal side of history, 
and held the view that the deciding factor in 
history is men in action. Thus, we hear less 
of the masses than their leaders, and less of 
conditions than of actions. Although Ranke 
again and again declared that his only aim in 
history was to show what actually occurred, 
yet he is constantly teaching moral lessons; as, 
for instance, when he portrays the shameless 
corruption of Italy as sealing her doom, and 
his judgment on the death of Alexander the 
Sixth, when he writes, "A limit is set to human 
crime. He died and became the abomination 
of the centuries." The reception of the work 
of the young Frankfort teacher was highly 
favorable, and he was rewarded by a call to 
Berlin University. In his own language, the 
door to his true life was now open so that he 
could spread his wings. At Berlin, Ranke 
profited by the friendship of Savigny, Rahel, 
and Vamhagen ; but his greatest joy was to be 
found in the riches of the archives, including 
the relations of the Venetian ambassadors of 



RANKE AND HIS PUPILS 65 

the sixteenth century. In the presence of this 
wealth of original material, he determined to 
rewrite the history of modem Europe. With 
the aid of the Venetian reports, he wrote the 
"History of the Ottomans and the Spanish 
Monarchy of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth 
Centuries," a work that brought him the privi- 
lege of subsidized travel for four years. In 
Vienna, he wrote the "History of the Revolu- 
tions in Servia," and proceeding to Rome, he 
prepared "Venice at the End of the Sixteenth 
Century." He remarked later that he had 
never learned or thought more than during 
these crowded years of travel. Returning to 
Berlin, he became editor of the Historico- 
Political Review, a journal founded for the 
purpose of combating the French influence; 
and while engaged in this capacity, his "History 
of the Popes" began to appear. This work did 
more than any other to raise its author to that 
supreme rank among historians which he has 
so long enjoyed. It is founded largely on 
documents still in manuscript and lying un- 
edited in the libraries of Venice and Rome. 
His "History of the Reformation in Germany" 
began to appear in 1845, and it forms a series 
of commentaries on the Reformation rather 
than a history itself. Its greatest value is in 
the light it throws on the relations of Prussia 
to the other states of Germany while the Refor- 
5 



66 RANKE AND HIS PUPILS 

mation was in progress. It is to be valued for 
its judgments on difficult and obscure points 
rather than for its descriptions. His "History 
of England," published in 1876, completed the 
cycle of his works dealing with the great powers 
of Europe. While the author treats in some 
measure the whole of English history to the 
death of George the Second, he evidently 
regarded the portions relating to the Reforma- 
tion period as the body of the work. To one 
who is just beginning the study of English 
history, much of Ranke's England will be in a 
measure incomprehensible, but for one who has 
already considerable knowledge of the subject, it 
is not surpassed by any other. As Gooch says 
in his ' * History and Historians of the Nineteenth 
Century," **It is the history for historians." 

In 1880, at the age of eighty-five, Ranke 
began to publish his new work on universal 
history. For several years he had been unable 
to read and write, and he had to labor through 
two secretaries. It is a wonderful production, 
considered merely as the intellectual achieve- 
ment of a man between eighty and ninety who 
could no longer read and write. Though this 
history deals above all with great tendencies, 
the importance of the individual actor is em- 
phasized on every page. He says: "On the 
summit of deep, universal, tumultuous move- 
ments appear natures cast in gigantic mould 



RANKE AND HIS PUPILS 67 

which rivet the attention of the centuries. 
General tendencies do not alone decide; great 
personalities are always necessary to make 
them effective." 

Ranke's services to history, as summarized 
by Gooch in his "History and Historians of 
the Nineteenth Century," are, first, to divorce 
the study of the past from the passions of the 
present and relate what actually occurred. His 
own strong opinions remained locked in his 
bosom. In the second place, he established the 
necessity of founding historical construction on 
strictly contemporary sources. When he began 
to write, historians of good repute still depended 
on memoirs and chronicles; but when he laid 
down his pen, every scholar had learned to 
make use of nothing less than the papers and 
correspondence of the actors themselves, and 
those in immediate contact with the events 
they describe. In the third place, he founded 
the science of evidence, by the analysis of 
authorities, and henceforth every historian 
must inquire where his informant obtained his 
facts. 

Ranke was a brilliant teacher, as well as a 
great historian, and Mr. Gooch summarizes the 
impressions left by a number of his students. 
Giesebrecht said: ''The unusual liveliness was 
at first disconcerting. The lecture was thor- 
oughly prepared. The notes lay before the 



68 RANKE AND HIS PUPILS 

teacher, but his words came forth as a creation 
of the moment and at times his material seemed 
to overwhelm him. The stream rarely flowed 
evenly. First it would issue slowly and then 
so rapidly that it was difficult to follow; or 
again there would be a long pause, because 
the speaker seemed unable to find the word 
which conveyed the picture of his fancy." 
"Ranke's lectures," writes Hermann Grimm, 
"chained me from the first word to the last. 
He filled beginners with the feeling that they 
were witnessing the affairs of men with the 
experience of veteran statesmen. He spoke as 
if he had been present at all the incidents which 
he described." Ranke continued his lectures 
until 187 1, when he was compelled to retire 
on account of ill-health. His later years as a 
teacher are described by Reuss, who said: "He 
spoke without great animation, and was only 
audible on the front benches. But sometimes 
he arrived with a more rapid step, produced 
some new book from his pocket, and discussed 
in animated improvisation questions of method 
and criticism arising out of it. Then his 
wrinkled face lit up with a singular flame, he 
gesticulated like a young man, and those who 
were attentive and advanced enough to profit 
by the oracles, were amply compensated for 
many dull sittings." In 1833, Ranke founded 
a Seminar in his own study at Berlin for the 



RANKE AND HIS PUPILS 69 

purpose of training those who wished to make 
history their profession. Gooch says that this 
Seminar was attended by a group of students, 
every one of whom was to win fame in the fields 
of research. Ranke set the young men to work 
on a critical study of the Middle Ages, and every 
member of the group found his life work and 
was destined to become engaged in productive 
authorship. 

Of the members of Ranke 's Seminar, three 
men gained particular distinction in the fields 
of historical research. The first of these 
students was Waitz, who after pursuing critical 
studies of the sources, wrote the "German 
Constitutional History," and later became 
professor at Kiel, Gottingen, and Berlin. He 
died the same day as Ranke, the latter aged 
ninety, and the former seventy- three. While 
Ranke 's books were written for the masses, 
Waitz worked and wrote for scholars, and it is 
only scholars who can measure the value of his 
services. The second of Ranke 's pupils to reach 
world-wide fame was Giesebrecht, who, being 
trained in the art of his master, prepared after 
twenty years labor, "The History of the German 
Imperial Idea." His dream was to see a re- 
united Germany, and his ideal was a powerful 
empire, a vigorous church, and a God-fearing 
people. His original intention was to bring 
his narrative down to the end of the Hohen- 



70 RANKE AND HIS PUPILS 

staufen period; but the plan was modified, and 
when he died, he was still at work on Barbarossa. 
Giesebrecht's book afforded a powerful stimulus 
to his generation, and his imperialism and pride 
in his race helped to make his work the political 
and moral influence that he desired. He lived 
to see the new empire formed in 1871, taking 
on a better form than he had glorified in his 
history. He spent a long life in mastering a 
single epoch, and in writing a single book; but 
among all his countrymen employed on the 
Middle Ages, no one was more widely read and 
trusted. The youngest and most scholarly of 
Ranke's pupils was Sybel, who devoted his 
energies to renewing the connection between 
history and politics, which Ranke had done his 
utmost to break. He went to Berlin in 1834, 
at the age of seventeen, and was at once 
admitted to the Seminar. After being thor- 
oughly trained in the sources, he wrote the 
"History of the First Crusade." The work was 
highly praised for its critical and narrative 
qualities. Gooch declares that he put the old 
chroniclers of the Crusades under the anatomical 
knife, and thereby robbed this movement of 
many legends, took from Peter the Hermit and 
Godfrey of Bouillon their aureole, and wrote a 
plain story from the best sources. He was 
called as Privat Docent to Bonn, where he 
began to prepare his work on German institu- 



RANKE AND HIS PUPILS 71 

tions, publishing **The Origin of the German 
Kingship" in 1844. He was rewarded by a call 
to Marburg University, where he was converted 
from mediaevalism to become the spokesman of 
the national liberals. It should also be remem- 
bered that among Ranke's pupils was Maxi- 
milian of Bavaria, and when that prince became 
king in 1848, he determined to bring Ranke to 
Munich. The formal invitation was received 
by the historian in 1853, but he refused to leave 
Berlin. Although Maximilian failed to attract 
his old teacher to Munich, he founded the 
Historical Commission of the Bavarian Acad- 
emy, with Ranke as President, and Gooch 
claims that this Commission has done more to 
further historical studies than any other 
institution. 

Gooch relates that Ranke in his old age, 
when surrounded by his children and grand- 
children, used to say, "I have another and 
older family, my pupils and their pupils." He 
was proud of Sybel, Waitz, and Giesebrecht, 
and wrote to the last named, ''You make my 
glory as a teacher complete." If Ranke were 
living to-day, his pride would be increased on 
witnessing the universal recognition of history 
in the high schools, colleges, and universities of 
the world; for as Mr. Trevelyan says: "Clio is 
driving the classical Athene out of the field as 
the popular Arts course in our universities." 



72 RANKE AND HIS PUPILS 

The influence of Ranke and his family on the 
scholars in our own land has been profound. 
Beginning with George Bancroft, a host of 
Americans have proceeded to the German 
universities, where, as students, they acquired 
the critical methods of historical research. 
Our own universities have also introduced the 
Seminar methods of graduate work, employed 
with marked success by Ranke at Berlin. Our 
debt to Ranke and his pupils is great, and the 
American historians would perform a gracious 
act by observing next year the one hundred 
and twentieth anniversary of his birth, thereby 
recognizing the contributions of German culture 
and scholarship to our civilization. 



GOSSIP IN A LIBRARY 



GOSSIP IN A LIBRARY 

In my library I can always meet with faithful 
friends, who greet me with a kind word, ever 
ready to unfold their ample knowledge, and 
share with me their boundless stores of wealth. 
In the companionship of books there is a true 
democracy. Poets, sages, and historians alike 
condescend to form intimate relations with me. 
Surrounded by such companions as these, I 
love to choose some theme relating to the distant 
past, and my erudite friends invariably begin 
a conversation leading to the realm of history, 
whose by-ways are filled with interesting scenes 
and charming subjects. 

This evening I have been consulting a number 
of old worthies who wrote much about America 
in the eighteenth century. Their names are 
rarely mentioned to-day, and the average 
student does not become acquainted with their 
works. I first held an extended conversation 
with Thomas Pownall, whose interest in America 
led him in 1764 to publish a book entitled "The 
Administration of the British Colonies." I have 
before me the fifth edition of the same, pub- 
lished in 1774, containing much additional 
information. The author, Thomas Pownall, an 
Englishman, was born in 1722 and died in 1805. 

75 



76 GOSSIP IN A LIBRARY 

He held various positions which gave him much 
detailed information concerning the American 
colonies. In 1745, he became Secretary to the 
Commission for Trade and Plantations. In 
1755, he acted as commissioner for Massachu- 
setts Bay in negotiating with the other colonies 
for the expedition against Crown Point. In 
1757, he was appointed Governor of Massa- 
chusetts, and shortly afterwards held the same 
office in New Jersey and South Carolina suc- 
cessively. In 1 76 1, he was made Comptroller- 
General of the army in Germany, and later 
became a member of Parliament, until 1780, 
when he retired to private life. 

Pownall was one of the first Englishmen to 
understand the position of our country geo- 
graphically. He realized the importance of 
the Atlantic Ocean and the great inland waters 
in the development of our trade and commerce. 
He desired to call England's attention to these 
opportunities for commercial supremacy in the 
New World; and so in **The Administration 
of the Colonies" he wishes to see the British 
Islands and the American possessions united 
into "one grand marine dominion." Referring 
to the differences between the colonies and the 
mother country, he says: ''As the rising of 
this crisis forms precisely the object on which 
government should be employed, so the taking 
leading measures towards the forming all those 



GOSSIP IN A LIBRARY 77 

Atlantic and American possessions into one 
empire, of which Great Britain should be the 
commercial and political centre, is the precise 
duty of government at this crisis." Pownall 
possessed what most of the English statesmen 
of his day hopelessly lacked — an accurate 
knowledge of American conditions and affairs. 
This ignorance inspired the Navigation Acts 
and other harsh commercial regulations, all of 
which helped to alienate the colonies from the 
mother country. He knew of the resources of 
America, and saw in the distance the approach- 
ing storm long before it burst in its awful fury. 
This he predicts in his book, as follows: "The 
whole train of events, the whole course of 
business, must perpetually bring forward into 
practice, and necessarily in the end, into 
establishment, either an American or a British 
union. There is no other alternative." Again, 
he says: ''Such is the actual state of the 
really existing system of our dominions, that 
neither the power of government over these 
various parts can long continue under the 
present mode of administration, nor the great 
interests of commerce extended throughout the 
whole long subsist under the present system 
of the laws of trade." 

In the midst of the Revolutionary War, 
Pownall was a warm friend of America. On 
December 2, 1777, he declared in the House 



78 GOSSIP IN A LIBRARY 

of Commons, that "the sovereignty of this 
country over America is aboHshed and gone 
forever. ' ' Speaking further on the same subject, 
he said : * ' Until you shall be convinced that you 
are no longer sovereigns of America, but that 
the United States are an independent, sovereign 
people, — until you are prepared to treat them 
as such, — it is of no consequence at all what 
schemes or plans of conciliation this side of the 
House or that may adopt." In following the 
writings of this friend of America, I find a 
sympathetic tone in all his arguments. In his 
"Memorial to the Sovereigns of Europe," 
published in 1780, he says of our country: 
"North America is become a primary planet 
in the system of the world, which, while it 
takes its own course, must have effect on the 
orbit of every other planet, and shift the com- 
mon centre of gravity of the whole system of 
the European world. North America is de facto 
an independent power, which has taken its 
equal station with other powers, and must be 
so de jure. The independence of America is 
fixed as fate. She is mistress of her own future, 
knows that she is so, and will actuate that 
power which she feels she hath, so as to establish 
her own system and to change the system of 
Europe." 

Gracious and prophetic words are these from 
this friend across the seas! In closing my 



GOSSIP IN A LIBRARY 79 

gossip with Thomas Pownall, I wish to quote 
his remarks on the birthright of the American 
citizen, as he describes it in his "Memorial to 
the Sovereigns of America": "Every inhabi- 
tant of America is de facto as well as de jure, 
equal, in his essential, inseparable rights of the 
individual, to any other individual, and is, in 
these rights, independent of any power that 
any other can assume over him, over his labor, 
or his property. This is a principle in act and 
deed, and not a mere speculative theorem." 

I next began a friendly chat with Peter Kalm, 
the Swedish traveller, who made a visit to 
America in the year 1748. The observations 
and experiences of this tour are published in an 
interesting work, now before me, the pretentious 
title of which reads as follows: "Travels into 
North America ; Containing its Natural History, 
and a Circumstantial Account of its Plantations 
and Agriculture in General, with the Civil, 
Ecclesiastical, and Commercial State of the 
Country, the Manners of the Inhabitants, and 
Several Curious and Important Remarks on 
Various Subjects. By Peter Kalm, Professor 
of (Economy in the University of Aobo in 
Swedish Finland, and Member of the Swedish 
Royal Academy of Sciences. Translated into 
EngHsh by John Reinhold Forster, F.A.S. 
Enriched with a Map, Several Cuts for the 
Illustration of Natural History and Some 



80 GOSSIP IN A LIBRARY 

Additional Notes. In Three Volumes. London, 
1772." 

These volumes contain one of the best of the 
numerous accounts of America that appeared 
in the eighteenth century. Peter Kalm, the 
author, was born at Osterbotten in 17 15, and 
died in Aobo in 1779. In the year 1745, he 
was made a professor in the University of Aobo, 
Swedish Finland. Ab6ut 1740, Baron Charles 
Bielke, Vice President of the Court of Justice 
in Finland, made a proposal to the Royal 
Academy of Sciences at Stockholm, to send an 
able man to the northern parts of Siberia and 
Iceland, there to make such observations as 
would improve the Swedish husbandry, garden- 
ing, manufacturing, arts and sciences. Dr. 
Linnaeus suggested that a journey through 
North America would be of greater utility; for 
the plants of this region thrived well in the 
Swedish climate, and promised to be very 
useful in husbandry. The project of such a 
journey was revived in 1745, when the Royal 
Academy agreed to send Professor Kalm to 
North America. 

Professor Kalm started for the New World 
in October, 1747, accompanied by Lars Yung- 
straem, a gardener well skilled in the knowledge 
of plants. He arrived at London in February, 
1748, and then visited different parts of 
England, making observations in gardening 



GOSSIP IN A LIBRARY 81 

and husbandry. On August i6, he embarked 
on the long voyage across the Atlantic, his 
destination being New Castle on the Delaware, 
which was reached on the 26th of September. 
Kalm employed the remainder of the year 1748 
in collecting seeds of trees and plants, and send- 
ing them to Sweden. He passed the winter 
with the Swedish people at Raccoon, New 
Jersey. In the spring, he travelled through 
New Jersey and New York, along the Hudson 
and the Great Lakes, to Montreal and Quebec. 
Returning in the fall to Philadelphia, he sent 
a new cargo of seeds and plants to Sweden. In 
1750, he made a tour of Western Pennsylvania, 
and visited the Indian tribes in New York. In 
October, he returned to Philadelphia from this 
summer expedition. 

In the spring of 1751, Kalm embarked at 
New Castle for his native country, and on 
June 13 arrived at Stockholm. He at once 
resumed his professorship at Aobo, and in a 
private garden began the cultivation of many 
American plants. As publishers in Sweden 
were few, the account of his journey appeared 
at intervals and at his own expense. It was 
first pubHshed in the Swedish language, but 
was soon translated into German. The English 
edition in three volumes was offered to the 
public in the year 1772. 

Kalm relates his observations as they occurred 
6 



82 GOSSIP IN A LIBRARY 

day by day, in the form of a diary, or journal. 
As everything was new to him, his descriptions 
are filled with the minutest details, now giving 
a scientific account of the petrel that hovered 
about the vessel, and of every seaweed noticed 
on the waters; and again, telling his readers of 
the art of making apple dumplings in Pennsyl- 
vania. His interest in the Swedes on the 
Delaware naturally led him to give much space 
in his "Travels" to Philadelphia and Eastern 
Pennsylvania. He states that on his arrival in 
Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin was the first 
to notice him, and to give him all necessary 
instructions. He says: ''I found that I was 
now come into a new world. Whenever I looked 
to the ground, I everywhere found such plants 
as I had never seen before. When I saw a tree, 
I was forced to stop, and ask those who accom- 
panied me, how it was called. I was seized 
with terror at the thought of ranging so many 
new and unknown parts of natural history. 
At first, I only considered the plants, without 
venturing on a more accurate examination." 

Kalm expresses his admiration of the fine 
appearance of Philadelphia, its regular streets, 
comfortable houses, numerous churches, and 
the old Town Hall, having a tower with a bell 
in the middle, "the greatest ornament in the 
town. ' ' He praises the public spirit of Benjamin 
Franklin in founding the Philadelphia Library, 



GOSSIP IN A LIBRARY 83 

which, he says, "is open every Saturday from 
four to eight o'clock in the afternoon." How 
different from our ample library facilities to-day ! 
There were no Carnegies in the times of Peter 
Kalm. His comments on the water supply of 
Philadelphia may interest the reader of our 
generation. He says: "The good and clear 
water in Philadelphia is likewise one of its 
advantages. For though there are no fountains 
in the town, yet there is a well in every house, 
and several in the streets, all of which afford 
excellent water for boiling, drinking, washing 
and other uses." 

Kalm visited John Bartram at his residence 
southwest of Philadelphia, and from him ob- 
tained an exact knowledge of the state of the 
country, and of the forest trees that covered 
the hills. He speaks in the highest terms of 
Bart ram's abilities and genius for natural 
history. It was through Bartram that he 
became familiar with the plant life of Pennsyl- 
vania. As a result, these volumes of travel, 
although written by a Swedish scholar, are 
stamped with the genius of our first American 
botanist. 

The author gives an interesting description 
of the simple mode of life followed by the 
Swedes on the Delaware, in colonial times. 
They lived upon bread and butter and small 
quantities of meat. Their clothing was made 



84 GOSSIP IN A LIBRARY 

from the skins of animals, or rough worsted 
goods, while their beds were skins of animals, 
such as bears, wolves, etc. Speaking of their 
houses, he says: "The whole house consisted 
of one little room, the door of which was so 
low that one was obliged to stoop in order to 
get in. As they had brought no glass with 
them, they were obliged to be content with 
little holes, before which a movable board was 
fastened. The chimneys were made in a comer, 
either of gray sand or clay which they laid very 
thick in one comer of the house. The ovens 
for baking were likewise in the rooms." 

I must now bring this conversation with 
Professor Kalm to a close. The volumes before 
me testify that the author carried home to 
Sweden a vast store of knowledge concerning 
America. He conducted his researches with 
more patience than the ubiquitous globe-trotter 
of this century, who explores the Philippines, 
Japan, China, and Siberia in a few weeks, and 
then goes on the lecture platform with a series 
of illustrated talks. 

I will now summon up another eighteenth 
century worthy, who published a valuable 
account of his tour to America, in a work en- 
titled: "Travels Through the Middle Settle- 
ments in North America, in the Years 1759 
and 1760, with Observations upon the State 
of the Colonies, by the Rev. Andrew Burnaby, 



GOSSIP IN A LIBRARY 85 

A.M., Vicar of Greenwich. London, 1775." 
Mr. Burnaby, a noted divine and traveller, the 
eldest son of Rev. Andrew Burnaby, of Bramp- 
ton Manor House, Huntingdonshire, was born 
in the year 1734. He was educated at Winches- 
ter School, and at Queen's College, Cambridge, 
where he took the degree of B.A. in 1754. In 
1759 and 1760, he made a tour through the 
middle settlements of North America, and 
afterwards, in 1775, published an account of 
his travels, which reached a second edition 
within a year; while in 1798, the work was 
reissued in an enlarged form. 

Mr. Burnaby relates that a few days before 
embarking for America, while seated in a coffee 
house, an elderly gentleman gave him the 
following advice: "Sir, you are young, and 
just entering into the world; I am old, and 
upon the point of leaving it: allow me, there- 
fore, to give you one piece of advice, which is 
the result of experience; and which may pos- 
sibly, some time or other, be of use to you. You 
are going to a country where everything will 
appear new and wonderful to you; but it will 
appear so only for a while; for the novelty of 
it will daily wear off; and in time it will grow 
quite familiar to you. Let me, therefore, 
recommend to you to note in your pocket-book 
every circumstance that may make an impres- 
sion upon you; for be assured, sir, though it 



86 GOSSIP IN A LIBRARY 

may afterward appear familiar and uninterest- 
ing to yourself, that it will not appear so to your 
friends who have never visited that country, 
and that they will be entertained by it." 

As the result of these suggestions, Bumaby 
wrote his "Travels Through the Middle Settle- 
ments in North America." It is interesting to 
gather from so reliable a source an account of 
the social and political conditions in America 
one hundred and fifty years ago. I shall follow 
the author through his book and allow him to 
describe his journey along the Atlantic sea- 
board from Virginia to Massachusetts Bay and 
New Hampshire. Mr. Bumaby embarked for 
the New World on April 27, 1759, and on July 5 
of the same year, his vessel came to anchor 
in the York River, Virginia. The author's 
stay in Virginia was prolonged almost a year, 
during which time he made several excursions 
into different parts of the country. The 
author devotes more than seventy pages of 
his book to the Old Dominion and Maryland. 
He describes the rivers, climate, and soil of 
Virginia, and also dwells at length upon the 
political and social institutions of the South. 
Referring to the evils associated with slavery, 
he says: "Their authority over their slaves 
renders them vain and imperious, and entire 
strangers to that elegance of sentiment which 
is so peculiarly characteristic of refined and 



GOSSIP IN A LIBRARY 87 

polished nations. Their ignorance of mankind 
and of learning exposes them to many errors 
and prejudices, especially in regard to Indians 
and negroes, whom they scarcely consider as 
of the human species; so that it is almost im- 
possible in cases of violence, or even murder, 
committed upon those unhappy people by any 
of the planters, to have the delinquents brought 
to justice: for either the grand jury refuse to 
find the bill, or the petit jury bring in their 
verdict, not guilty. The display of a character 
thus constituted will naturally be in acts of 
extravagance, ostentation, and a disregard of 
economy; it is not extraordinary, therefore, 
that the Virginians out-run their incomes ; and 
that having involved themselves in difficulties, 
they are frequently tempted to raise money 
by bills of exchange, which they know will be 
returned protested, with ten per cent, interest." 
Leaving Virginia, Burnaby travelled north 
through Maryland to New Castle on the Dela- 
ware, and then proceeded to Philadelphia, at 
that time a city of twenty thousand inhabitants. 
He saw here a prosperous settlement — fine 
public buildings, two libraries, hospitals, and 
churches. He found the whole colony of Penn- 
sylvania to be in a most prosperous condition. 
The people were frugal and industrious, and 
filled with the republican spirit. The women 
were exceedingly handsome and polite, and 



88 GOSSIP IN A LIBRARY 

would have made good figures even in the first 
assemblies of Europe. 

Bumaby continued his journey through New 
Jersey to New York City, where he visited 
King's College, which he believed to be the 
most beautifully situated of any college in the 
world. He sailed through the Hell Gate, which 
reminded him of the description of Scylla and 
Charybdis. The vessel carried him to Newport, 
where he began a study of the New England 
life and character. He says: *'The character 
of the Rhode Islanders is by no means engaging 
or amiable, a circumstance principally owing 
to their form of government. Their men in 
power, from the highest to the lowest, are 
dependent upon the people, and frequently act 
without that strict regard to probity and 
honour which ever ought invariably to influence 
and direct mankind. The private people are 
cunning, deceitful, and selfish: they live almost 
entirely by unfair and illicit trading. Their 
magistrates are partial and corrupt: and it is 
folly to expect justice in their courts of judica- 
ture; for he who has the greatest influence is 
generally found to have the fairest cause." 
Bumaby's impressions of Rhode Island were 
those of the globe-trotter, who recognizes only 
the evils that appear on the surface of society. 
The paper-money craze was sweeping over the 
colony during his visit, and the abuses of this 



GOSSIP IN A LIBRARY 89 

system led him to conclude that a general moral 
and political decline had begun. Passing on to 
Boston, he found conditions more to his liking. 
He says: "Arts and sciences seem to have 
made a greater progress here than in any other 
part of America. Harvard College has been 
founded above a hundred years; and although 
it is not upon a perfect plan, yet it has produced 
a very good effect. The arts are undeniably 
forwarder in Massachusetts Bay than either in 
Pennsylvania or New York. The public build- 
ings are more elegant; and there is a more 
general turn for music, painting, and the belles 
lettres." After a brief visit to New Hampshire, 
the author closes the narrative of his travels 
with some general observations concerning 
America. He doubts the possibility of a per- 
manent union among the colonies on account 
of the jealousies due to their heterogeneous 
character. Again, he says that independence 
can never be maintained until the united 
colonies become mistress of the seas. His view 
as to the impossibility of union was held by 
many at the time ; but the Federal Government 
became an established fact, notwithstanding 
the gloomy predictions of statesmen and sages. 
Our maritime position was acquired by the 
War of 1812; and so the union formed of dis- 
cordant elements, now bounded by a coast line 
thousands of miles in extent, is rendered secure 



90 GOSSIP IN A LIBRARY 

by a naval power that commands the respect 
of the leading nations of the world. And yet, 
Andrew Bumaby predicted that half a dozen 
frigates would, with ease, ravage and lay waste 
the whole country from end to end, without a 
possibility of our being able to prevent it! 

I will now close this gossip in a library, hoping 
that through my conversation with these 
eighteenth century worthies, the student of 
history may be attracted to their merits. In 
these old volumes relating to America there is 
abundant material which adds a lively interest 
to the dry annals of colonial times. Contem- 
porary narratives written by foreigners are 
always valuable, although at times erroneous. 
Criticism by writers from abroad has been of 
vast benefit to us; and from the days of the 
earliest travellers in America to the times of 
De Tocqueville and Bryce, a copious literature 
of this kind has been published, most of which 
is friendly in tone and hopeful for the future of 
our institutions. 



THE DELUGE OF BOOKS 



THE DELUGE OF BOOKS 

With the development of universal education, 
there has been so great an increase in the num- 
ber of books in the world that librarians now 
face the problem of overcrowded shelves, and 
the ardent reader is simply overwhelmed with 
the task before him. Still, books continue to 
multiply in number, at least twenty thousand 
being published annually in the English lan- 
guage alone. The bibliophiles who lived in the 
days of Gutenberg and even a hundred years 
later, counted their bookish treasures in a few 
portly folio tomes, and in 1650, at the book 
fair in a German city, only nine hundred and 
fifty volumes were displayed. Now the number 
of books printed in the United States exceeds 
two hundred thousand, and there is no indica- 
tion that the deluge is likely to subside. It is 
a fact that publishers have rendered a valuable 
service in checking a still greater flood ; for only 
one per cent, of the manuscripts submitted 
ever get into print. The rapid production of 
works of fiction is chiefly responsible for the 
literary deluge; in fact, this class of works is 
most widely read, with history and biography 
as a close second. Thus we see that the most 
popular books are those which deal with human 

93 



94 THE DELUGE OF BOOKS 

life and character, and this, no doubt, will 
continue to be the case. No harm will ever 
come to the great books of the world by the 
appearance of these works of transient interest. 
Although the immortal authors are few in 
number and all their books can be placed on a 
' ' five-foot shelf, ' ' they will always have an 
abiding place in the world of letters. Their 
merit survives the lapse of time, and what they 
wrote does not go out of fashion. Truly, did 
Emerson say: "Consider what you have in 
the smallest, well-chosen library. A company 
of the wisest and wittiest men that could be 
picked out of all civilized countries in a thousand 
years have set in best order the results of their 
learning and wisdom. The men themselves 
were hid and inaccessible, solitary, impatient of 
interruption, fenced in by etiquette, but the 
thought which they did not uncover to their 
bosom friends, is here written in transparent 
words to us, the strangers of another age." 

Probably it was this deluge of books that 
drove the poet to despair and led him to exclaim : 

Books, 'tis a dull and endless strife, 
Come, hear the woodland linnet, 

How sweet his music. On my life, 
There's more of wisdom in it. 

One impulse from the vernal wood 

May teach you more of man, 
Of moral evil and of good, 

Than all the sages can. 



THE DELUGE OF BOOKS 95 

A certain English author, while a student at 
Cambridge, always entered the library of his 
college with a sense of desolation and sadness. 
He could see no good in the old editions of the 
classics and the folios of the Fathers, and he 
bemoaned the fact that these college libraries 
were not kept up to date. He confessed that 
they were wholly un visited, and expressed the 
opinion that they have no use left, save as 
repositories or store-rooms. But this severe, 
yet honest, critic is evidently wrong in advocat- 
ing the reading of books which deal only with 
contemporary subjects. The roots of all knowl- 
edge lie buried deep in the past, and many 
priceless gems of wisdom are hidden in the dust- 
covered volumes of former centuries. College 
and university libraries will continue to welcome 
the literary treasures of former ages, notwith- 
standing the criticisms of the friends of modern 
utilitarian studies. The chief function of the 
university is to foster the higher liberal knowl- 
edge, and the library, with its accumulated lore, 
is the fountain of research and scholarship. 
Longfellow's words in "Hyperion" are still 
true, when he says of a university: ''What a 
strange picture a university presents to the 
imagination! The lives of scholars in their 
cloistered stillness; literary men of retired 
habits, and professors who study sixteen hours 
a day, and never see the world but on a Sunday. 



96 THE DELUGE OF BOOKS 

Nature has, no doubt, for some wise purpose, 
placed in their hearts this love of literary labor 
and seclusion. Otherwise, who would feed the 
undying lamp of thought? But for such men 
as these, a blast of wind through the chinks 
and crannies of this old world, or the flapping 
of a conqueror's banner, would blow it out 
forever. The light of the soul is so easily 
extinguished. And whenever I reflect upon 
these things I become aware of the great 
importance, in a nation's history, of the indi- 
vidual fame of scholars and literary men." In 
the university, then, where knowledge is sought 
for its own ends, the chief motive for reading 
is intellectual, and the library must supply the 
sources for this purpose. To the interested 
student, the apparently dry-as-dust contents 
of the shelves are rich with living material, 
revealing the social, economic, literary, and 
artistic conditions of past ages. In the labora- 
tories and libraries of the universities, those 
discoveries are made which now "kindle the 
brightest Hghts on the Muses' sacred hill." 
The great colleges and universities of the world 
had their origin around clusters of books. In 
our own country, it was thus that Harvard and 
Yale were founded, and this tradition is being 
preserved at Harvard, in the magnificent 
library erected to the memory of Harry E. 
Widener, that modest, yet devoted, lover and 



THE DELUGE OF BOOKS 97 

collector of good books. University students, 
by pursuing highly specialized courses of study, 
escape, to a certain degree, the threatened 
deluge of books. Having definite objects in 
view, and guided by the counsel of professors, 
these young men read along particular lines, 
and in their investigations endeavor to explore 
the sources as far as possible. This kind of 
training leads to discrimination in the art of 
reading and enables the student to extend his 
intimate acquaintance with books in other fields 
beyond his own department. With the aid of 
a disciplined judgment, the best works of human 
culture become his regular companions, and, as 
David Pryde says, "Thus does this scholar's 
soul grow and extend itself until it lives in every 
region of the earth and in every by-gone age, 
and holds the most intimate intercourse with 
the spirits of the mighty dead." The deluge of 
books need not disturb the serene, yet busy life 
of the college-bred man. His intellectual heri- 
tage is a goodly one, having received that rich 
mental gift which enables him to select and 
read the best works of the ages. How does the 
scholar use this rare bequest? If he does not 
make contributions of knowledge to his own 
department, he should at least continue his 
reading with diligence, so that his own enthusi- 
asm may act as a contagion upon others. By 
the terms of the stewardship imposed upon 
7 



98 THE DELUGE OF BOOKS 

him he must "feed the undying lamp of 
thought," and show through Hfe a sincere 
interest in those books which contain the best 
treasures of thought. 

The less fortunate of our fellow-men, who 
have not had the advantages of a college train- 
ing, deserve sympathy and advice in the art 
of reading so as not to become discouraged by 
the deluge of books. Abraham Lincoln, in a 
region where books were few and almost inac- 
cessible, mastered the Bible, Euclid, and Shake- 
speare, although it was claimed of him that he 
had read no great work of the eighteenth or 
nineteenth century. He became so familiar 
with Euclid that he could give any proposition 
in the six books of this author at sight. He was 
fond of Shakespeare, and the mere mention of 
any play would waken up in him a train of 
deep and original thought. He astonished 
visitors by reciting lengthy passages from the 
plays, and Mr. Sinclair has declared that he 
never heard these choice passages rendered 
with more effect by the most famous modern 
actors. By constantly meditating on the Bible 
and Shakespeare, he acquired that rich fund 
of expression which gives his writings a charm 
and a permanent place in our literature. In 
preparing his most famous state papers, he 
exercised the same patient care as he did in 
struggling with Euclid in his early days. He 



THE DELUGE OF BOOKS 99 

devoted weeks to his First Inaugural, locked 
in a second story room in Springfield across the 
street from the State Capitol, and amid those 
dingy surroundings, with the Constitution, 
Clay's Speech of 1850, Jackson's Proclamation 
against Nullification, and Webster's Reply 
to Hayne for reference, he prepared what is 
now considered to be an immortal state 
paper. Lincoln was not confused in his 
reading by the deluge of books; on the 
other hand, he had to walk miles to find a 
single volume. But he fortunately became 
acquainted with the masterpieces of the ages, 
and as they were constantly in his mind, he 
developed a style of prose that attracted the 
attention even of foreign critics. It may be 
added in this connection that a copy of the 
letter which Lincoln wrote to the mother who 
had sacrificed five sons to the Union cause 
adorns the halls of Oxford University as an 
example of perfect English. What Lincoln 
accomplished in the way of reading in an ob- 
scure frontier community can now be done 
in our day without sacrifice, notwithstanding 
the deluge of books which sometimes makes an 
intelligent selection of the best works well-nigh 
impossible. I recall with satisfaction a book, 
David Pryde's "Highways of Literature," 
which fell into my hands in boyhood. The 
suggestions of this author proved so valuable 



100 THE DELUGE OF BOOKS 

to me that I feel like repeating them for the 
benefit of others. Dr. Pryde answers the ques- 
tion, What books are we to read? as follows: 
I. Read first the one or two great standard 
works in each department of literature; 2. 
Confine then our reading to that department 
which suits the particular bent of our mind, 
The second question that arises is, How are we 
to read these books? which the author answers 
by giving the following definite rules : 

1. Before you begin to peruse a book, know 
something about the author. 

2. Read the preface carefully. 

3. Take a comprehensive survey of the table 
of contents. 

4. Give your whole attention to what you 
read. 

5. Be sure to note the most valuable passages 
as you read. 

6. Write out in your own language a summary 
of the facts you have noted. 

7. Apply the results of your reading to your 
every-day duties. 

Reading, if conducted in the spirit of the 
above-named rules, will give culture and disci- 
pline to the mind, and at the same time afford 
much pleasure to the individual. But even the 
most earnest student needs, at times, a certain 
degree of relaxation from so rigid a method of 
reading. He should also read for pleasure and 



THE DELUGE OF BOOKS 101 

recreation; for, as Dr. Pryde says, ''It refreshes 
us after hard work, and helps to restore the 
tone of the mind. It may even do more. Mr. 
Boffin grew rich by sifting dust-heaps ; and you 
may (if you follow a method) become wise by 
skimming over gossipy literature." Some find 
this recreation in the newspapers, magazines, 
and works of humor ; while others enjoy mental 
relief in serious books in fields beyond their 
own department. Provost Edgar F. Smith, a 
noted chemist, maintains an enthusiastic inter- 
est in biography, and another instance comes 
to my mind of an eminent authority on public 
hygiene who has won recognition in genealogical 
researches. The conclusion of the matter is 
that the man is more useful in his own depart- 
ment who does considerable reading in other 
lines, whether for amusement, recreation, or 
more serious purposes. 



THE LIFE EXPERIENCES OF 
A PAINTER-POET, THOMAS 
BUCHANAN READ 



THE LIFE EXPERIENCES OF A 

PAINTER-POET, THOMAS 

BUCHANAN READ 

Pennsylvania's two leading poets, Bayard 
Taylor and Thomas Buchanan Read, were 
both natives of Chester County, and although 
more than a generation has passed away since 
their death, no serious effort has been made to 
honor either of these distinguished men until 
quite recently. About two years ago the Ches- 
ter County Historical Society erected granite 
monuments at Cedar croft, the home of Bayard 
Taylor, and at Read's birthplace in Brandy- 
wine Township. Some years ago, Dr. Con well 
prepared a biography of Bayard Taylor, and 
my lamented friend and colleague, the late 
Albert H. Smyth, wrote his life in the American 
Men of Letters Series. Professor Smyth, too, 
has passed to the other shore, and scholars 
realize that with his going there is a void in 
the realm of letters difficult to fill. So have 
departed the men who maintained the best 
literary traditions in Pennsylvania, Thomas 
Buchanan Read, George H. Boker, Bayard 
Taylor, Henry Reed, Albert H. Smyth, and 
Horace Howard Furness. How appropriate are 

105 



106 THOMAS BUCHANAN READ 

the lines of Read's poem, ''The Celestial Army," 
to the passing of these gentle spirits: 

I stood by the open casement, 

And looked upon the night, 
And saw the westward-going stars 

Pass slowly out of sight. 

The stars and the mailed moon. 
Though they seem to fall and die. 

Still sweep with their embattled lines 
An endless reach of sky. 

And though the hills of death 

May hide the bright array, 
The marshalled brotherhood of souls 

Still keeps its upward way. 

Upward, forever upward, 

I see their march sublime, 
And hear the glorious music 

Of the conquerors of time. 

So these men live in their works, and as they 
keep on their upward way, their memory will 
never fail; for literary friendships are like the 
fixed stars of night, constant and unchanging, 
and, as Read says: 

And long let us remember, 
That the palest, fainting one 

May to diviner vision be 
A bright and blazing sun. 

Thomas Buchanan Read was born March 12, 
1822, and his early boyhood was spent among 
the wooded slopes that bound the Chester Valley 
on the north. To the east in the distance 



THOMAS BUCHANAN READ 107 

rise the blue hills of Uwchlan, while a mile or 
two away flows the east branch of the Brandy- 
wine, which he describes in song, as follows: 

Not Juniata's rocky tide, 
That bursts its mountain barriers wide, 
Nor Susquehanna broad and fair, 
Nor thou, sea-drinking Delaware, 
May with that lovely stream compare. 
That draws its winding silver line 
Through Chester's storied vales and hills, 
The bright, the laughing Brandywine, 
That dallies with its hundred mills. 

Thus, young Read learned his lessons from 
the blue hills in the distance, from the rippling 
Brandywine, from the well-tilled fields of wheat 
and corn, and from the seasons with their 
variety of gifts. For several winters, he at- 
tended the school at Hopewell, a mile distant, 
taught by Rev. Daniel Myers, a miller and 
local preacher of the Methodist Episcopal 
church. While attending Parson Myers' school, 
as a mere boy. Read's genius for art and poetry 
began to develop. In referring to his early 
love of art, he once said: ''Often as a boy of 
ten or twelve, I wandered away to the hills, 
and amid haunts where men seldom strayed, 
there would I pass the day in making sketches, 
perchance of some peculiar tree, crag, water- 
fall and hill, and then amuse myself by fantas- 
tically weaving them into one." About 1832, 
the old home was broken up, and several of the 



108 THOMAS BUCHANAN READ 

family migrated to the West. The regret that 
young Read experienced as he saw his birth- 
place pass into other hands was expressed years 
afterwards in the lines of ''The Stranger on the 
Sill": 

Between broad fields of wheat and corn 
Is the lowly home where I was born. 
The peach tree leans against the wall, 
And the woodbine wanders over all ; 
There is the shaded doorway still, 
But a stranger's foot has crossed the sill. 

With the passing of the old home, Read was 
apprenticed to James Harner, a tailor, at Whit- 
ford, Chester Coimty. He soon left this cruel 
master, and began a series of adventures as 
strange as David Copperfield's. He walked to 
Philadelphia, and at last found employment in 
a grocery store, and later was apprenticed to a 
cigar maker. In the spring of 1837, he deter- 
mined to go to Cincinnati, where his relatives 
had made their home. He crossed the moun- 
tains of Pennsylvania on foot, and reaching 
Pittsburg, made his way down the Ohio on a 
fiatboat to Cincinnati. His struggles and 
wanderings were by no means ended; but in 
Cincinnati, his highest ambitions were encour- 
aged, and here his genius as a painter and poet 
was first recognized. Even at that early time, 
Cincinnati had produced a number of authors 
and artists of merit. The first artist of note 
whose name appears in the annals of Cincinnati 



THOMAS BUCHANAN READ 109 

was A. W. Corwine, a miniature painter, whose 
career began about 1821. Before 1830, Joseph 
Mason, Joseph Hyle, Samuel W. Lee, Charles 
Harding, and Mr. Tuttle had opened studios, 
and were engaged in portrait painting. Among 
Read's early contemporaries in Cincinnati 
were Miner H. Kellogg, James H. Beard, John 
Frankenstein, WiUiam H. Powell, T. W. Whitt- 
redge, Charles Soule, and William L. Sonntag. 
In sculpture, Cincinnati likewise achieved a 
fair name. The same year that Read made his 
humble beginning in this city, Hiram Powers 
arrived in Florence to study the masters of the 
Old World. Like Read, he had drifted to 
Cincinnati as a poor boy, toiling and hoping 
so earnestly as to excite sympathy. He finally 
mastered his art through the greatest sacrifice, 
and remembering his own struggles, he always 
took a fatherly interest in Read. Another 
sculptor of that period who became attached 
to Read was Edward A. Brackett. Born in 
1 81 9, in the State of Maine, he went as a boy 
with his parents to Cincinnati, and working 
in an obscure garret, finally modelled the first 
statue in the Mississippi Valley, that of ' ' Nydia, 
the Blind Girl of Thessaly." 

But it was Clevenger, the lamented Shobal 
Vail Clevenger, who first encouraged Read's 
artistic abilities, and gave him an opportunity 
to display his genius. Read's first employment 



110 THOMAS BUCHANAN READ 

in Cincinnati was that of a painter of canal 
boats on the Miami Canal, and while engaged 
in this humble work, he was discovered by 
Clevenger, who offered the young man a place 
in his studio. Clevenger, like Read, had many 
strange adventures in early life, working first 
in a marble yard, and later opening a studio 
in Cincinnati, where Read was employed to 
carve letters and figures on monuments. Clev- 
enger 's daughter wrote me that her father took 
a deep interest in young Read; but his hopes 
of becoming a sculptor were shattered when 
Clevenger removed to Boston in 1838, to finish 
a bust of Webster. In 1840, Clevenger went to 
Florence, where he carved the famous statue, 
"The Indian Warrior." Threatened with 
consumption, he sailed for home in 1842, but 
he died on the voyage and was buried at sea. 

Although Read was not able to follow his 
original plan of becoming a sculptor, his inter- 
est in art continued, and he opened a shop over 
a grocery store in Cincinnati, where he practised 
sign painting. Struggling along without in- 
struction, his progress was slow and discourag- 
ing. In 1840, he decided to leave Cincinnati, 
and he opened a studio in Dayton, where he 
failed to secure any business. So he depended 
on his wits for a livelihood, as he had often 
done before. His taJents were recognized by 
a theatrical company, and he was engaged for 



THOMAS BUCHANAN READ 111 

a brief period, taking the female parts, for 
which his sHght figure so well fitted him. But 
he had longings for art and for Cincinnati; so 
he returned after this novel experience on the 
stage, to open a studio in his adopted city. 
He made a number of successful studies of the 
human face, and decided to give his sole atten- 
tion to portrait painting. Nicholas Longworth, 
the first millionaire of Cincinnati, gave Read 
the funds to maintain a studio while waiting 
for sitters, and he was one of the first to have 
his portrait painted. In 1840, Read painted 
the full-length portrait of General Harrison for 
friends of the old hero. It was in the midst of 
the presidential campaign, and this fact helped 
to bring the young artist's name before the 
public. The picture was pronounced an excel- 
lent piece of work for one so young; but years 
afterward. Read freely admitted that it was ''a 
sad daub." At the same time, many of his 
fugitive verses began to appear in the Cincinnati 
papers, the Times and the Chronicle; but he 
followed painting as the major passion. He 
wished to improve in technique, but there were 
no good schools for artists in the West. He 
thought of Powers and Clevenger, how they 
achieved fame in the Old World, and his soul 
longed for Italy. Circumstances prevented the 
realization of this dream at once; so he deter- 
mined upon the next best thing, to go to Boston, 



112 THOMAS BUCHANAN READ 

where there were many opportunities to study 
his profession. 

Read said farewell to the West early in 1841, 
at that time a youth of only nineteen years, 
and what a succession of experiences had been 
crowded into his life ! Like Thomas Cole, who 
wandered from town to town with his pictures, 
Read worked his way East by painting por- 
traits in the villages and hotels along the road. 
After spending a few months in New York City, 
he reached Boston in the fall of 1841. Here he 
at once became acquainted with Washington 
Allston and Henry W. Longfellow, a most 
fortunate circumstance in his career. Allston, 
whose life-work was drawing to a close, willingly 
gave Read counsel and instruction. His dis- 
tinguished work as a painter and lecturer on 
art deeply impressed the young man. But 
these happy relations were unfortunately ended 
with the death of Allston in 1843, the paint 
still fresh on his great picture, "Belshazzar's 
Feast." After becoming established in Boston, 
Read visited Andover, bearing letters of intro- 
duction to the leading men of that town. Here 
he painted President Leonard Woods and 
Professor Moses Stuart, of the Theological 
Seminary. His studio in Boston was located 
in the basement of the Park Street Church. 
His charming manners and keen wit and humor 
attracted the wealth}^ classes, and it became 



THOMAS BUCHANAN READ 113 

the fashion to sit for a picture in Read's studio. 
Although his devotion to painting was sincere, 
Read soon began to give half his heart to poetry. 
He composed a few stanzas each evening, 
which were recited next day to his friends as 
he worked at the easel. Among Read's fre- 
quent callers was the good and genial Long- 
fellow. At times, Read became discouraged 
with his poetical efforts ; but Longfellow showed 
his appreciation, urging him to keep on, de- 
claring, ''You will yet be a poet." His regard 
for Longfellow was almost akin to veneration, 
and is beautifully expressed in the poem, "A 
Leaf from the Past," published in Graham's 
Magazine, October, 1846: 

With thee, dear friend, though far away, 

I walk as on some vanished day, 

And all the past returns in beautiful array. 

I listen to thy charming word, 

And sadness, like the affrighted bird, 

Flies fast, and flies afar, until it is unheard. 

After 1842, Read began to contribute poems 
to the magazines. His lines are found in The 
Rover, a New York weekly, edited by Seba 
Smith, who wrote satirical letters under the 
pen name of Major Jack Downing. A number 
of Read's poems also appeared in The Symbol, 
a Boston magazine published in the inter- 
ests of Odd Fellowship, one of exquisite beauty 
being "The Fount of the Nile," not found in 
8 



114 THOMAS BUCHANAN READ 

his collected works. In 1843 and 1844, many 
of his poems were published in McMakin's 
Boston Courier, and were widely copied by the 
press all over the country. Literary men every- 
where were attracted by "The Winnower," and 
"The Swiss Street Singer," which compare 
favorably with his later efforts. 

Although for two years Read had contributed 
fugitive verses to the Boston magazines, his 
first formal appearance as an author was in a 
prose work, entitled, "Paul Redding: a Tale 
of the Brandy wine," published in Boston in 
1845, a^d dedicated to his old benefactor, 
Nicholas Longworth. This book is not found 
in printed lists of Read's works, and its exist- 
ence is not generally known. The hero of this 
vStory, Paul Redding, is undoubtedly Read 
himself, and its purpose is to portray his own 
early life and struggles. 

In 1843, Read married Mary J. Pratt, of 
Gambier, Ohio. She had just graduated from 
the Seminary at Bradford, Massachusetts, and 
was regarded as a fine classical scholar. Read's 
devotion to her is expressed in his poems, "The 
Light of our Home," "Beside the Murmuring 
Merrimac," and "The Toll Bridge." He now 
lived more intensely than ever in his dreams 
and poetical visions, and he hoped some day 
to take his wife away from the crowded city, 
and build her a home in the beautiful Chester 



THOMAS BUCHANAN READ 115 

Valley. But the hand of Fate is apparently 
cruel at times, for within ten years she died a 
victim of the plague in the city of Florence, 
Italy. 

In 1846, Read made his home in Philadelphia, 
where he opened a studio for the painting of 
portraits ; but the magazines of the day indicate 
that he must have given at least half his heart 
to poetry. Between 1846 and 1850, he con- 
tributed many poems to the Philadelphia 
Saturday Courier, under the name of " Hazel 
Dell." People read these poetical gems with 
much interest, and for months they were 
unable to identify the "Hazel Dell" poet. 
During the same period of time, George R. 
Graham and John Sartain gave Read generous 
assistance by publishing his poems in their 
magazines. It is interesting to-day to look 
through these Philadelphia journals, and see 
there the contributions of the young poets of 
that generation, Whittier, Longfellow, Boker, 
Read, and Bayard Taylor. In 1847, W. D. 
Ticknor, of Boston, published a volume of 
Read's poems, including most of the verses 
that had appeared in the Boston Courier. The 
next year, he published in Philadelphia another 
collection under the name, ''Lays and Ballads," 
containing the ''Hazel Dell" poems from the 
Philadelphia Courier. I have an interesting 
letter from Read to J. Bayard Taylor, Phoenix- 



116 THOMAS BUCHANAN READ 

ville, written March 15, 1847, which describes 
the young painter-poet's feeHngs at this time. 
Read complains to Taylor of overwork, declar- 
ing that constant toil was destroying his health 
and undermining his imagination. He says: 
"I am sometimes more than half inclined to 
give up writing altogether, and confine my 
ambition and impulse to the easel. Such a 
course would put more money in my purse." 
But he said he hated this mercenary thought, 
and believed it his duty to follow the ideal. 
Although Read complained to Taylor of the 
miserable prices paid for his poems by the 
magazine editors, he must have prospered with 
his art in Philadelphia. He was patronized by 
several wealthy picture buyers, among them 
James L. Claghom; so that, in 1850, he was 
able to sail for Europe to study in the schools 
of art in the Old World. 

Fortunately, I have a vast amount of material 
for this period of Read's life, including his 
foreign correspondence to the Cincinnati Com- 
mercial, letters to Bayard Taylor, letters of 
William Michael Rossetti, and reminiscences of 
a number of his friends. Read reached London 
early in October, 1850, where he visited the 
National Gallery, and met Leigh Hunt, Tenny- 
son, William and Mary Howitt, Dante Gabriel 
Rossetti, and others of the Pre-Raphaelite 
painters, a brotherhood of artists that had just 



THOMAS BUCHANAN READ 117 

been formed. Mary Howitt, in her "Remi- 
niscences of My Later Life," describes the recep- 
tion given to Read by the Pre-Raphaelites just 
before he departed from London, and it seems 
that they could not part with him. In fact, it 
was reported that they had carried Read off in 
a chariot of fire. WilHam Michael Rossetti, 
in writing to me, confirms all this, and elo- 
quently describes the impression made by Read 
in England. In January, 185 1, Read proceeded 
to Aix-la-Chapelle, and then to Diisseldorf, at 
that time the most important art centre in 
Germany. I cannot understand why American 
travellers to the Continent fail to visit Diissel- 
dorf; for it is one of the most beautiful of the 
European cities. I shall never forget its broad 
and shady avenues, lined with imposing build- 
ings, statues, and monuments, and best of all, 
its art gallery, with Janssen's famous mural 
painting representing Shakespeare's "Seven 
Ages." At Diisseldorf, Read met Leutze, the 
painter, and Freiligrath, the German poet. He 
found Leutze at work on his great picture, 
"Washington Crossing the Delaware," and 
going to Cologne, he saw Whittredge and several 
other American painters, Whittredge being 
engaged upon the famous Rhine landscape, 
"The Seven Mountains," a scene so often 
painted by the French and German artists. 
Read spent several months at Diisseldorf and 



118 THOMAS BUCHANAN READ 

Cologne, and then journeyed up the Rhine, in 
the midst of scenes beloved by the poets, and 
hallowed by all the light that history and ro- 
mance can give. I learn from one of Read's 
letters to Bayard Taylor that he reached 
Frankfort in September, 185 1, and after that 
his itinerary would include Switzerland and 
Northern Italy. 

From this time, Read vibrated between two 
continents, back and forth, like a bird of 
passage, absorbed in his devotion to the twin 
arts to which his life was consecrated. Early 
in 1852, he returned to Philadelphia, and opened 
a studio at 215 Chestnut Street, but residing 
with his family in the old Bonaparte home at 
Bordentown. During this year, **The Closing 
Scene" appeared, in reviewing which, Coventry 
Patmore declared Read the most promising of 
the trans-Atlantic poets, and that the poem 
surpassed Gray's Elegy in simple language and 
imagery. The same year, an English edition 
of Read's poems, beautifully illustrated by 
Kenny Meadows, was published by Delf and 
Triibner, London. 

Late in 1853, Read sailed with his family for 
Europe to make his home in Florence, Italy. 
Florence at that time was at the height of its 
glory. The city itself had changed but little 
since feudal days, presenting romantic contrasts 
at every turn. The people were spirited, and 



THOMAS BUCHANAN READ 119 

the sentiment for Italian unity was strong. 
When Read arrived in Florence, it was the 
abode of many literary men and artists. There 
were Hiram Powers, Owen Meredith, Charles 
Lever, Robert and Mrs. Browning, Mrs. Trol- 
lope, and George Sand, besides a host of others. 
During his residence in Florence, Read painted 
many of his most ideal pictures, among them 
being "Titania," "The Lost Pleiades," "The 
Spirit of the Waterfall," "Undine," and "Cleo- 
patra and Her Barge," which were immediately 
purchased by several devoted friends. He also 
finished the lengthy poem, "The New Pastoral," 
which was published in 1835, by Parry and 
McMillan, Philadelphia. Read's hopes of a per- 
manent residence in Florence were destroyed, 
when, in May, 1855, the cholera appeared in 
that city, among the victims being his own wife 
and daughter. Read himself became ill, and 
to save his life, he was hurried off to the Baths 
of Lucca by his friends, Hiram Powers and John 
R. Tait. At this place, near the gulf where 
Shelley lost his life. Read found solace for his 
grief by composing a lengthy poem, "The 
House by the Sea," a wild, sad tale, containing 
the moral lesson that the temptations of life 
are not so much to be found amidst the every- 
day realities of the world, as in solitude and 
retirement; and the best way to avoid them 
is to mingle with our kind, to be a part of the 



120 THOMAS BUCHANAN READ 

busy world about us, and to partake of its 
occupations and enjoyments, and share in its 
feelings and sympathies. 

In November, 1855, Read sailed with John 
R. Tait for America, the ambition of making 
a permanent home in Florence being now but 
a cherished memory of the past. He hastened 
to Philadelphia, and on December 18, "The 
House by the Sea" was published. The poem 
was well received by the critics and the public, 
the first edition being exhausted in a few weeks. 
It is to be regretted, however, that poems like 
this do not recommend themselves to the masses 
of our day, when everybody is busy chasing 
the golden phantom, and literary tastes crave 
the comic supplement, the jingling rhyme, and 
the moving picture show. 

In January, 1856, Read opened a studio in 
Philadelphia, and he writes to Mr. Tait that 
he is ver}^ busy with sitters. During the sum- 
mer, he married Harriet Denison Butler, of 
Northampton, Massachusetts, and immediately 
sailed for Europe, reaching Liverpool on Sep- 
tember 13. In London, he painted a full-length 
of Mr. Peabody, and heads of Tennyson and 
Leigh Hunt. He also sent back to America 
the proofs of a new volume of poems, ''Sylvia, 
the Last Shepherd," a beautiful story of country 
life, published in Philadelphia in 1857. Read 
did not arrive in Rome until the winter of 1856, 



THOMAS BUCHANAN READ 121 

and he declared it to be the only city in the 
world for an artist or poet. He returned to 
England in 1857, to finish some portraits; while 
in 1858, he was back in America, opening a 
studio in the Parkinson Building, at present the 
site of the Chestnut Street Opera House, Phila- 
delphia. The late John Bunting related to me 
that he once visited the studio. Three of 
Read's best pictures were on the walls, "The 
Ascension of the Innocents," "The Spirit of 
the Waterfall," and "Hiawatha's Wooing." 
Seated by Read was his friend and fellow-poet, 
George H. Boker, and in silence they contem- 
plated these fanciful paintings. In December, 

1858, Read opened a studio in New York City. 
In June, 1859, he made a five weeks' trip to 
Boston, and spent most of the time in the family 
of Longfellow, where he painted a portrait of 
him and also one of his three daughters. Then 
he visited Dr. Holmes and painted his portrait. 
Read regarded this as a great triumph, and he 
wrote to Mr. Tait : "In the language of Napo- 
leon, 'great battle, great victory.'" One of 
Read's most beautiful and best known poems, 
"Drifting," was written in Brooklyn, in March, 

1859, before he had ever seen the Bay of Naples. 
It was a stormy Sunday and he was ill at the 
time. Filled with depression, he longed for the 
radiant beauty of the Italian shores, and he 
composed the lines of "Drifting." Read 



122 THOMAS BUCHANAN READ 

visited Naples for the first time in 1868, and 
great was his delight at seeing the beautiful 
bay. To make the picture complete, he later 
wrote the additional stanza: 

In lofty lines, 

Mid palms and pines, 

And aloes, olives, elms, and vines, 

Sorrento swings 

On sunset wings. 

Where Tasso's spirit soars and sings. 

If we read this beautiful poem and then visit 
the Bay of Naples, we realize what Hawthorne 
meant when he said Read's poems were pictures, 
iand his pictures were poems. The traveller 
who has read "Drifting" sees Sorrento, Ischia, 
and Capri invested with a new glory; but how 
soon the lines of the last stanza would be true 
of Read himself, as his soul drifted to the 
heavenly shore, when he says: 

No more, no more. 

The worldly shore 

Upbraids me with its loud uproar. 

With dreamful eyes 

My spirit lies, 

Under the walls of Paradise. 

In i860, Read made another voyage to 
Europe, and reached London in September of 
that year. He painted a portrait of George M. 
Dallas, and in January, 1861, proceeded to 
Rome, where he painted "Hiawatha Carrying 
Home His Bride," and "Diana in the Moon." 



THOMAS BUCHANAN READ 123 

Although deHghtfully situated on the Pincian 
Hill, and prospering in his art, Read was much 
aroused by the threats of civil war in America. 
He wrote to John R. Tait: "But if the Union 
breaks, who cares then what breaks; if that is 
a failure, success is not worth having. I shall 
be content to sit in dust and ashes the rest of 
my days." Before the close of 1 86 1, he answered 
his country's call and returned to America. It 
should be recalled that Read rendered valuable 
service to the Union during the Civil War, 
writing patriotic poems, giving public readings 
for the benefit of the soldiers, and reciting his 
war songs at the head of the armies. When 
Cincinnati was threatened by the Confeder- 
ates, he volunteered for the defence of that 
city in General Lew Wallace's army, and after- 
wards wrote an account of the siege in the 
Atlantic Monthly. In 1863, he published a 
longer poem, * ' The Wagoner of the AUeghanies, ' ' 
which is filled with gems of patriotism, many 
of which he pubHcly recited during the war. 
Read's poem, "Sheridan's Ride," was composed 
in a few hours in Cincinnati, on November i, 
1864, the theme being suggested by a picture 
in Harper's Weekly of "Sheridan's Ride to the 
Front." The same evening, the poem was read 
by James E. Murdoch in Pike's Opera House, 
and in a few days it was published in the news- 
papers throughout the land. The effect of this 



124 THOMAS BUCHANAN READ 

war lyric is a part of the history of the Rebellion, 
and to this day it remains the most popular 
poem of that class produced in America. The 
influence of Read's war lyrics on the Union 
cause entitles him to a memorial in Statuary 
Hall under the dome of the National Capitol 
at Washington. With James E. Murdoch, he 
appeared in the leading cities and recited from 
''The New Pastoral," "The Relics," "The 
Three Eras," "The Oath," "The Rising of 
1776," and "Sheridan's Ride." Who can 
measure the influence of this service? Nations, 
like individuals, respond to poetic sentiment, 
and as slumbering Sparta was aroused by the 
verses of Tyrtaeus, so the regiments of the 
Civil War caught the spirit of "Sheridan's 
Ride," and a new enthusiasm was carried along 
on the billows of war from the Potomac to the 
Rio Grande, until the tide of battle ebbed for- 
ever at Appomattox. 

In 1867, Read returned to Europe, and spent 
the next five years in the city of Rome. Over- 
work during the Civil War had broken his 
health; yet he was at his easel with the earliest 
sunlight, and he burned the midnight oil in 
writing poetry. In Rome, he completed the 
painting, "Sheridan's Ride," having made 
studies for this picture before going abroad. In 
the summer of 1868, Read became ill from over- 
work, and was compelled to leave Rome for a 



THOMAS BUCHANAN READ 125 

cooler climate, passing three months in Swit- 
zerland and at Diisseldorf . In the winter, he 
returned to Rome and painted a large portrait 
of the ex-Queen of Naples. During the next 
year, he painted the beautiful pictures, "The 
Star of Bethlehem," "The Christmas Hymn," 
"The Three Martyrs at the Sepulchre," and 
"Abou Ben Adhem." There are persons still 
living who tarried at Rome in those days, and 
enjoyed the hospitality of Read's home. At 
the request of friends, he would recite his 
favorite poems, "Drifting" and "Brushwood," 
bringing tears to many as the verses were read 
in his effective style. Read had the good for- 
tune of residing in Rome when Italian nation- 
aHty was completed, and the armies of Victor 
Emmanuel entered the Eternal City. The 
struggle of a thousand years was ended, and 
two great states, Germany and Italy, took their 
place among the nations of the earth. Read 
caught the inspiration of the hour, and wrote 
a poem of welcome to Victor Emmanuel, one 
stanza reading : 

Italia through her hundred roads 

Is marching into Rome; 
She comes not as a conqueror, 

But exile welcomed home. 

From that time. Prince Humbert and Princess 
Marguerite were his constant friends, and 
visits between Read's studio and the Quirinal 



126 THOMAS BUCHANAN READ 

Palace were frequently exchanged. Declining 
health prompted Read to sail for America in 
April, 1872. He lived to reach New York, 
where he died on May 11, entering into that 
higher life foreshadowed in his own lines: 

We nightly die ourselves to sleep, 

Then wherefore fear we death? 
'Tis but a slumber still more deep 

And undisturbed by breath. 
We daily waken to the light, 

When morning walks her way. 
Then wherefore doubt death's longer night 

Will bring a brighter day. 

In closing these experiences of a painter-poet, 
I will quote the estimate of so severe a critic 
as Richard H. Stoddard. He says of Read's 
poetry: "I would rather have written the 
song of his beginning, 

Bring me the juice of the honey fruit, 

than anything I remember in American poetry. 
It is as perfect as the best things of Lovelace, 
Suckling, or Carew, and any poet, great or 
small, might be proud to write it." 



THOUGHTS ON MEMORIAL 
DAY 



MEMORIAL DAY 

Almost fifty years have passed away since 
General Ulysses S. Grant met General Robert 
E. Lee at Appomattox Court House and received 
from him the surrender of the Army of the 
Confederacy. Four years of war and desolation 
had brought a long train of sorrows into nearly 
every American home, and we look back with 
feelings of overwhelming emotion at the costly 
sacrifices made by our relatives and friends on 
the consecrated altars of freedom and nation- 
ality. In the hour of final triumph, the victori- 
ous general, with his constant longings for peace, 
treated his vanquished foe with a spirit of 
charity unknown to former ages of the world. 
Chivalry did not perish with the close of the 
Middle Ages, but it reached its subHmest 
heights at Appomattox, when the Union Army, 
backed with all national power, witnessed in 
silence the defeated adversary file by in broken 
ranks and return to their Southern homes, a 
shattered remnant of the once powerful force 
that resisted the supremacy of the Constitution, 
and for years imperilled the very existence of 
the Republic. Truly, the spirit of Saladin was 
revived in our modern times, and we need not 
revert to mediseval romance for inspiring ex- 
amples of knighthood in battle and moral 
grandeur in the hour of triumph. One day the 

9 129 



130 MEMORIAL DAY 

rebel forces were our enemy; the next day they 
had melted away like the morning dews before 
the rising sun, and in a few weeks the Army 
of the Potomac and the Army of the West 
had stacked their arms and furled the battle 
flags, while the stars and stripes floated once 
more over a reunited country. In eulogizing 
these soldiers, Charles Francis Adams says : 
''Both generals were typical; the one of Illinois 
and the new West, the other of Virginia and 
the Old Dominion. Grant was magnanimous 
and restrained in victory; Lee, dignified in 
defeat, compelled respect. Verily, it is true, 
even of soldiers, that he that ruleth his own 
spirit is greater than he that taketh a city." 

Their deeds now belong to history and fame, 
and with the advent of each Memorial Day, we 
review the soldier's story, and join in the hal- 
lowed service of devotion by placing the fairest 
garlands of spring on the graves of the honored 
dead. 

We hear the bugles adown the street, 

And hoof of horse and rattle of drum, 
And rhythmic fall of marching feet, 

And know the men and maidens come 
To stripe with flag and star with flowers 

The soldier graves, 

O, faithful graves 
Of those who gave the flag its flowers. 

As wide as the extent of our common coun- 
try is this beautiful service observed. In the 



MEMORIAL DAY 131 

crowded city and amidst the quiet rural scenes, 
willing hands bear these tributes of nature to the 
soldier's resting place. From the mighty East to 
the farthest West, the martial host repose, and 

By the flow of the inland river, 

Whence the fleets of iron have fled, 
Where the blades of the grave grass quiver, 

Asleep are the ranks of the dead: 
Under the sod and the dew. 

Waiting the Judgment Day, 
Under the one the Blue, 

Under the other the Gray. 

And with a pathos beyond the power of 
human expression, we view the nameless graves 
in the cemeteries at Gettysburg, ArHngton, and 
Antietam, the first immortalized by Lincoln in 
his oration in 1863. At Gettysburg, the name- 
less dead repose on the hillside where once the 
tide of battle flowed; but now no thunders of 
conflict disturb the soldier's rest. The swords 
have been beaten into ploughshares and the 
spears into pruning hooks, while the glorious 
sun of peace lights hill and valley and the far- 
off Blue Mountains with its radiant glow. As 
the American pilgrim resorts to this sacred spot, 
memories of the struggle for liberty and nation- 
ality in all the ages crowd the mind, and he 
realizes that at Gettysburg the world's best 
hope was saved when Pickett's men were rolled 
back in defeat and the flag of the Union was 
seen once more waving in triumph through the 



132 MEMORIAL DAY 

rifts in the lowering clouds of war. Cherished 
forever will be our memory of the nameless 
dead at Gettysburg, nameless it is true in 
human records, but, as the poet says : 

While the prayer is floating upward, 

Sits apart an angel form, 
With a scroll like whitest fleece cloud 

That follows up the storm. 
And she writes with diamond pencil 

Each buried soldier's name. 
And the angel form is Justice, 

And the angel pen is Fame. 

Truly, did Pericles say: "The whole earth 
is the sepulchre of famous men; not only are 
they commemorated by columns and inscrip- 
tions in their own country, but in foreign lands 
there dwells also an unwritten memorial of them, 
graven not on stone, but in the hearts of men." 
Thus, every nation has beautifully enshrined 
the memory of the soldier dead, and down the 
ages, from ancient Greece to the hills of Gettys- 
burg, the voice of praise is heard. Every field 
of strife has also been fittingly marked by simple 
mounds or the finest creations of the sculptor's 
art, whether we recall the Lion's Mound where 

The mountains look on Marathon, 
And Marathon looks on the sea, 

or the earth barrows of Thermopylae, immortal- 
ized by Simonides, in the lines : 



MEMORIAL DAY 133 

No tears for them, but memory's loving gaze, 
For them no pity, but proud hymns of praise. 
Time shall not sweep this monument away, 
Time the destroyer, or dank decay. 
This not alone heroic ashes holds, 
Greece's own glory this earth shrine enfolds. 
Leonidas, the Spartan king; a name 
Of boundless honor and eternal fame. 

Or, in later ages, triumphal arches and imposing 
columns were erected in memory of the deeds 
of kings and conquerors ; but no Colossus of the 
builder's art, towering in its majestic proportions, 
brings from the Old World a meaning like the sim- 
ple tumuli of Marathon and Thermopylae, where 
the struggle gave freedom not only to Greece, 
but the hope of political and intellectual liberty 
to all the nations of the West. Our own country, 
rich with historical memories of the struggle for 
constitutional liberty, has with an unparalleled 
devotion sought to glorify the valor of the sol- 
dier dead. Fitting monuments rise at Concord, 

Where once the embattled farmers stood, 
And fired the shot heard round the world; 

at Valley Forge, where the patriotic devotion 
of George Washington kept alive the smoulder- 
ing campfires of the Revolution; and on the 
many battle-fields of the Civil War, imposing 
columns of granite and marble tell the thrilling 
story of sacrifice and love of country. 

To-day, the aged survivors of the Rebellion 
assemble once more, not in battle array with 



134 MEMORIAL DAY 

the implements of war, but with meagre ranks, 
bearing garlands of flowers through the quiet 
aisles of the cemetery to the graves of their 
comrades in arms. How few remain of that 
mighty host, who, answering their country's 
call, left our Northern cities and marched in the 
flush of youth down to the fields of strife, many 
to a glorious death, that this nation, freedom's 
brightest hope, should not perish from the earth ! 
The great majority have gone to swell the 
numbers on the farther shore, where the din 
of battle never disturbs the soldier's rest, and 

On Fame's eternal camping ground, 

Their silent tents are spread, 
And Glory guards with solemn round 

The bivouac of the dead. 

And how shall we find appropriate language 
to praise these soldiers of the Republic, of 
whom, as Pericles said of the Athenians, "Their 
deeds, when weighed in the balance, have been 
found equal to their fame; for on the battle- 
field, their feet stood fast, and in an instant, 
at the height of their fortune, they passed away 
from the scene, not of their fear but of their 
glory." In the American armies flowed the 
noblest blood of the Saxon race. Bright youth- 
hood with all its rich promise swelled the 
Northern ranks, and since the days of Crom- 
well's Ironsides, no finer battalions were ever 
marshalled on the fields of war. Until the 



MEMORIAL DAY 135 

French Revolution, the conflicts of Europe 
were generally fought by mercenary troops, 
whose one ambition was to plunder and destroy, 
or, perchance, to win a ribbon or a cross for 
valor. They looked unmoved upon human 
suffering, and cared nothing for the political 
and moral questions involved in war; but the 
soldiers of the Republic sought neither fame 
nor military glory, and as they offered their 
services on the altars of nationality, their only 
hope was either a costly sacrifice for their 
country, or, in case of survival, to receive the 
thanks and plaudits of a grateful people. The 
character of the Union soldiers won the admira- 
tion of foreign observers, and William H. Russell 
wrote to the London Times: ''Never perhaps has 
a finer body of men in all respects of physique 
been assembled by any power in the world, and 
their morale is equal to that of the best troops 
in Europe." Governed in the camp and field by 
Francis Lieber's humane and enlightened code 
of war, now adopted by all the nations of the 
world, and marching into battle to the sublime 
sentiments of the * * Battle Hymn of the Republic, ' ' 
the Union cause was defended with a burning re- 
ligious zeal before unknown to military history. 

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat ; 
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat ; 
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet, 
Our God is marching on. 



136 MEMORIAL DAY 

The majestic sweep of these lines and the 
sturdy rhythm of the music inspired our 
soldiers on many fields of battle; for they sang 
of country, freedom, and God, and whether by 
the watchfires of the circling camps, in the 
loathsome prison cells of the South, in the hour 
of defeat or final triumph, they swelled the 
refrain of ''Our God is marching on," and the 
echoes reverberated from every hill and moun- 
tain, and rolling through the farthest valleys, 
finally increased in volume, until they became 
the grand anthem of victory over secession and 
disunion. 

Lord Byron, in his beautiful poem, "The 
Isles of Greece," sounded a dirge-like note of 
despair when reflecting on the past glories of 
that land in comparison with the dearth of 
fame that he witnessed among the fettered race. 
Pathetic, indeed, are his lines : 

Must we but weep o'er days more blest? 

Must we but blush? Our fathers bled. 
Earth, render back from out thy breast 

A remnant of our Spartan dead. 
Of the three hundred grant but three, 
To make a new Thermopylae. 

To Byron's appeal he could hear no response 
but the voices of the dead, sounding like the 
distant torrent's fall. But he failed to recognize 
the silent intellectual revival which was arous- 
ing the national consciousness of the people 



MEMORIAL DAY 137 

and acquainting them with the common heritage 
of a glorious past. The national spirit was not 
dead; for on April 4, 182 1, when Germanos, 
Archbishop of Patras, proclaimed the insurrec- 
tion against the Turks, and raised the symbol 
of the cross before the Church of Saint George, 
the assembled throng swore to take up arms for 
the Fatherland, and in a few years Greece was 
free. In the bloody struggles of this war, a new 
Leonidas was born to fame, Marco Bozzaris, 

One of the few, the immortal names, 
That were not born to die. 

Our own country lay fettered in a slavery 
more cruel and blighting than that of Greece, 
and the prospect of a broken and dismembered 
Republic fell like a dark cloud over the land 
between 1850 and i860. The national senti- 
ment was buried in sectional strife, and neither 
the eloquence of orators nor the wisdom of 
statesmen was apparently able to arouse that 
passion for the Union which was purchased by 
the blood of heroes in the Revolution, and 
strengthened by the Fathers of the Republic 
through the guarantees of the Constitution. 
But out of the gloom and uncertainty of that 
period a powerful nation was destined to rise, 
and the bombardment of Fort Sumter quickened 
the patriotism of every heart. Its echoes rolled 
not only to our farthest shores, but were, indeed, 
like a shot heard round the world. Unlike 



138 MEMORIAL DAY 

Byron, we did not beg for three to make a new 
Thermopylas ; for in response to Lincoln's call 
for troops, a mighty host from all the loyal 
States sent back the prompt assurance: 

We are coming, Father Abraham, 
Three himdred thousand more ! 

firm in their resolve to save the nation of our 
Fathers, and transmit it to us untarnished, and 
destined, we hope, to serve mankind for un- 
numbered ages to come. It is our proud belief 
to-day that never in the future need we weep 
o'er days more blest, and that never need we 
call in vain for loyal hearts; but that, on the 
other hand, every appeal to patriotic duty will 
be answered by a whole nation, responding as 
with one mind to save the State, whether from 
domestic violence, or from the attacks of foes 
that may hover on our shores. The latter 
possibility is remote, while the danger of civil 
war will never again darken the land. This 
is the beHef of representative men in the South 
like General J. B. Gordon, who said on the 
lecture platform in Northern cities: ''The 
issues that divided the sections were born when 
the Republic was born, and were forever buried 
in an ocean of fraternal blood. We shall then 
see that, under God's providence, every sheet 
of flame from the blazing rifles of the contending 
armies, every whizzing shell that tore through 
the forests at Shiloh and Chancellors ville, every 



MEMORIAL DAY 139 

cannon shot that shook Chickamauga's hills or 
thundered around the heights of Gettysburg, 
and all the blood and tears that were shed are 
yet to become contributions for the upbuilding 
of American manhood and for the future defence 
of American freedom. The Christian church 
received its baptism of Pentecostal power as it 
emerged from the shadows of Calvary, and went 
forth to its world-wide work with greater unity 
and a diviner purpose. So the Republic, rising 
from its baptism of blood with a national life 
more robust, a national union more complete, and 
a national influence ever widening, shall go for- 
ever forward in its benign mission to humanity." 
In closing, may the sentiment of the poet be 
our hope to-day: 

No more shall the war-cry sever, 

Or the winding rivers be red; 
They banish our anger forever 

When they laurel the graves of our dead. 
Under the sod and the dew, 

Waiting the Judgment Day, 
Love and tears for the Blue, 

Tears and love for the Gray. 



GERMANY AND ENGLAND 



GERMANY AND ENGLAND * 

But little more than a century intervenes 
between the appearance of Immanuel Kant's 
treatise on "Perpetual Peace" and Bernhardi's 
''Germany and the Next War," and if this 
latter work expresses even to a slight degree 
the aspirations of the German race, war is as 
much a passion among this restless people as it 
was when Tacitus wrote his account of the 
Teutonic tribes nearly two thousand years ago. 
Bernhardi believes with Treitschke that "war 
will always recur as a drastic medicine for the 
human race," and that its blessings, as an 
indispensable and stimulating law of develop- 
ment, must be repeatedly emphasized. To the 
apostle of peace, he would recall Goethe's words : 

Dreams of a peaceful day, 
Let him dream who may. 
War is our rallying cry, 
Onward to victory. 

And with this motto ever before the vision of 
his aspiring countrymen, he assures them of 
Goethe's promise : 

* "Germany and England," by Prof. J. A. Cramb, of 
Queen's College, London. London, 19 14. 

143 



144 GERMANY AND ENGLAND 

Bid defiance to every power, 
Ever valiant, never cower. 
To the brave soldier open flies 
The golden gates of Paradise. 

Bemhardi declares that war is the impelling 
force that is carrying Germany forward to a 
higher destiny, and the direction of this strife 
is the isolation of Russia, the final humiliation 
of France, and then the inevitable conflict with 
England. Imbued with the philosophy of 
Nietzsche and Treitschke, he shows not merely 
how Germany could make war upon England, 
but why she ought to make war upon England. 
He frankly admits that England with her vast 
empire stands in the path of the highest aspir- 
ations of the German race. He believes that 
Germany, no less than England, is endowed 
with the genius for empire. The Fatherland 
once had an empire but lost it ; but the yearning 
for its recovery has ever occupied the mind of 
the nation and been the theme of her scholars. 
Treitschke declared that England secured pos- 
session of one-fifth of the habitable globe by 
theft, while Germany, cooped up between the 
North Sea, the Danube, and the Rhine, is com- 
pelled by her crowded conditions to lose each 
year thousands of her countrymen who emigrate 
to foreign lands. Thus, to a virile nation like 
Germany, anxious to assume her place in the 
sun, the spectacle of England's supremacy and 



GERMANY AND ENGLAND 145 

arrogance cannot be peaceably endured. Either 
England will inevitably decline on account of 
her moral weakness, like Venice after 1500, or 
war will surely follow. In the face of the 
approaching crisis, Bernhardi frankly admits 
that for Germany there are only two alterna- 
tives, ''World Dominion or Ruin." 

Prof. Cramb's new book, which appeared in 
June of this year, makes a critical analysis of 
the militant philosophy contained in the writ- 
ings of Treitschke and Bernhardi, and a careful 
reading of its pages will give a clear insight of 
the causes underlying the present war. As the 
old German imperialism begins by the destruc- 
tion of Rome, will the new imperiaHsm begin 
by the destruction of England? Prof. Cramb 
raises this portentous question and then pro- 
ceeds to analyze the political and moral origins 
of the sentiment of antagonism between England 
and Germany. The reader should not fail to 
remember the contention of Germany that two 
states, each endowed with the genius for empire, 
confront each other, and that to the Teutonic 
mind, England has lamentably failed in her 
imperial policy. For years the German scholars 
have been preparing the particulars of a strong 
indictment against the British Empire. The 
historians have bitterly arraigned the English 
rule in India, while a different group of critics 
has attacked the civic and national life, the 
10 



146 GERMANY AND ENGLAND 

laws, the Anglican Church, the universities, the 
army, and English society. The significance 
of this indictment is the moral scorn which 
prevails in Germany for England. This feeling 
of contempt is expressed by Treitschke, who 
says: "A thing that is wholly a sham cannot 
in this universe of ours endure forever. It may 
endure for a day, but its doom is certain ; there 
is no room for it in a world governed by valor, 
by the will to power." 

Prof. Cramb writes with dramatic interest 
when he reviews the yearnings of the German 
scholars for the inevitable day of reckoning 
with England, and how with warrior laughter 
they measure the certainty of triumph over an 
ignoble foe. They produce their title-deeds to 
world empire in a series of heroic and tragic 
forms that meet the wondering eye, among 
them Charlemagne and the Hohenstaufen, who 
inspire the youthful Germans with their im- 
pressive figures. In meditating upon the apathy 
and stolid indifference of England, Prof. Cramb 
seems to hear again the thunder of the footsteps 
of a great host. *'It is the war-bands of Alaric." 
England, he claims, has had sufficient warning, 
for did not Lord Salisbury in the year 1 900 pro- 
claim the construction of the Kiel Canal and 
the "Dreadnoughts" assembled there the first 
conflict between Germany and England? And 
Lord Roberts, "the Sidney of these later times," 



GERMANY AND ENGLAND 147 

in 1 9 13 added his message, challenging the 
attention of every Englishman who cares for 
more than the transient interests of the day. 

Prof. Cramb asserts that while two great 
nations confront each other, both endowed with 
the genius for empire, England has been 
schooled in the practice of imperialism for two 
hundred years, whereas Germany as a nation 
is undisciplined in empire. England, weary of 
the glory of empire, has allow^ed political power 
to pass more and more into the ranks of the 
English race itself, and now the nation is fre- 
quently expressing the desire for arbitration, 
for the limitation of armaments, and for peace 
at any price. Prof. Cramb raises the question, 
what is likely to result, if, confronting this, you 
have a nation high in its courage, lofty in its 
ambitions, moving on in its own path, which 
in the future may lead it to destinies to which 
even the imagination of a Treitschke can hardly 
assign a limit? He assures the reader that 
Germany's reply will be something like this: 
''You are the great robber-state; yet now in 
the twentieth century, as if the w^ar for the 
world were over because you are glutted with 
booty, now it is you, you who preach to us 
Germans universal peace, arbitration, and the 
diminution of armaments. But our position 
is that this war is not over." Prof. Cramb be- 
lieves that peace is but an ideal, and that while 



148 GERMANY AND ENGLAND 

in the twentieth century men talk of disarma- 
ment because war is opposed to social well-being, 
and, economically, is profitless alike to victor and 
vanquished, man's dreadful toll of blood has 
not yet all been paid. Declaimed against in 
the name of religion, in the name of humanity, 
in the name of profit and loss, war still goes on. 

Nations like individuals, says Prof. Cramb, 
are controlled by ideals which defy analysis. 
In Germany, for instance, seven hundred books 
appear annually dealing with war as a science. 
This points at once to an extreme preoccupation 
in that nation with the idea of war. Again, in 
Germany, the army is simply the natural ex- 
pression of the vital forces of the nation, and 
Treitschke's solution of the whole matter is 
that a nation's military efficiency is the ex- 
act coefficient of a nation's idealism. With 
Treitschke's disciple, Bernhardi, war is a duty, 
and nothing is more terrible than the govern- 
ment of the strong by the weak, and war is the 
power by which the strong assert their dominion 
over the weak. This is the spirit in which war 
is regarded in contemporary Germany. It is 
given a high moral place in the State, and 
what a powerful weapon is the sword in the 
hands of a people possessed with this ideal! 

Prof. Cramb gives a deUghtful picture of 
Treitschke as a teacher and historian, in which 
capacity his governing idea was the greatness 



GERMANY AND ENGLAND 149 

of Prussia, the glory of an army which is a 
nation and of a nation which is an army. His 
hatred for England is attributed to her success 
in the war for the world while Germany was 
preoccupied with higher and more spiritual 
ends. But for her absorption in those ends, 
Germany might, in the seventeenth and eigh- 
teenth centuries, have made the Danube a 
German river and established a German pre- 
dominance from the Bosphorus to the Indus. 
Prof. Cramb compares Treitschke's immense 
and enduring influence, not only in Prussia, 
but throughout the German world, with the 
influence exercised by Carlyle upon England 
since 1845. Treitschke's influence has gone on 
steadily increasing throughout Germany until 
the present day. Treitschke and Carlyle 
resemble each other in their high seriousness, 
sincerity, downrightness , and deep moral 
strength. "Do not imagine, however, that 
there is any further resemblance between them. 
For instance, there is not in all the seventeen 
volumes of Treitschke any hint of that broad 
human laughter which you find in very nearly 
every page of the thirty volumes of Carlyle. 
You may say, if you like, that this is because 
Germany has obtained free political institutions 
so recently and therefore has not yet acquired 
the power to take them humorously." Prof. 
Cramb states that fate was strangely kind to 



150 GERMANY AND ENGLAND 

Treitschke. "Though dwelling in that silent 
universe of the deaf, and threatened in age with 
the darkened universe of the blind, he lived 
just long enough to see upon the silver horizon 
of the North Sea, and upon the more mysterious 
horizon of the future, the first promise of the 
German fleets of the future. He saw Germany 
thus fitting herself for that high task which he 
had marked out to one generation after another 
of students, the day of reckoning with England, 
the day of reckoning with the great enemy for 
whom he had nevertheless that kind of regard 
which every great foe inspires, which England's 
strength inspires. And yet his im.agination 
pierced beneath the semblance of her strength, 
which to his imagination was but a semblance." 
In the final chapter of his volume, "Past 
and Future," Prof. Cramb asks the question, 
how is it possible to discover any principle 
which will enable us to conjecture, even in 
outline, the future of two such empires as 
Germany and England? In endeavoring to 
determine the future roles of these two nations, 
the author suggests that we seek for them in the 
region in which England's needs come most 
sharply into conflict with Germany's desires. 
Here a law, universal and inevitable in its 
application, discloses itself concerning the 
struggle for power. Amongst free independent 
nations weakness means war; and the empire 



GERMANY AND ENGLAND 151 

which is not able to defend itself by forces pro- 
portionate to the magnitude of that empire 
must fall. The period at which an empire 
becomes stationary can never be more than 
approximately determined, and the question 
arises whether England has reached the limit 
of expansion. On the other hand, the attitude 
in Germany is, are we to acquiesce in England's 
possession of one-fifth of the globe, with no 
title-deeds, no claim, except priority in robbery ? 
Is all, indeed, lost, and is the war for the world 
ended? In the world-arena has Germany, like 
a belated champion, girt in her shining armor, 
ridden up to the great tourney too late? The 
answer to these questions is, "World Dominion 
or Death." Prof. Cramb then proceeds to 
examine the problem in the light of history. 
Assuming for a moment that this world-pre- 
dominance is possible to Germany, what is the 
testimony of Germany's past to her capacity 
to play this part ? We find Germany an empire 
in the twelfth century under the Hohenstaufen, 
and her record in Italy is the record in Ireland 
of England at her worst. Again, Germany is 
an empire in the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries, and her power at that time in Italy 
is synchronous with the defeat and obliteration 
of Italian art, Italian literature, Italian religion, 
and Italian patriotism. Also, in the nineteenth 
century, Germany's power in Italy centres in 



152 GERMANY AND ENGLAND 

the name of Metternich, the high-priest of 
reactionary poHcies and oppression. Here, 
then, is the record of the past as to the future 
of Germany as a world-civiHzing power. But 
Germany's past as a world-civiHzing power 
does not concern the German thinkers of to-day. 
Treitschke has defined the aim of Germany, 
and it is this: "That just as the greatness of 
Germany is to be found in the governance of 
Germany by Prussia, so the greatness and good 
of the world is to be found in the predominance 
there of German culture, of the German mind, 
in a word, of the German character." The 
prevalent bent of mind at the universities, in 
the army amongst the cultured, is towards 
what may be described as the religion of Valor, 
the glory of action, heroism, the doing of great 
things. Prof. Cramb declares that it is in 
politics and ethics Napoleonism, for the young 
men of Germany see in Napoleon's creed the 
springs of his action, a message of fire: Live 
dangerously. Admiring the aspirations of the 
Fatherland, Prof. Cramb says: "That world- 
empire of which Germany dreams, she may, or 
may not, on its material side, attain; but in 
this race for the spirit's dominion, the mightier 
empire of human Thought, who is her rival? 
Where even is her competitor? Not England, 
assuredly; for in that region England in the 
twentieth century has a place retrograde 



GERMANY AND ENGLAND 153 

almost as Austria or Spain; not America; not 
Russia; not Japan, with her tasteless, over-eager 
efforts to enter the comity of Europe. Is it 
France?" 

Prof. Cramb asserts that if these are the 
legitimate impulses and ambitions of Germany, 
no Englishman remembering the methods by 
which the British Empire has been established 
in India, in America, in Africa, in Egypt, dare 
arraign those impulses and ambitions. The 
question to be answered is, what of England 
and those needs of England with which they 
enter most immediately into collision ? England 
in the twentieth century has reached the transi- 
tion stage in the history of all empires when 
more or less unconscious effort passes into 
conscious realization and achievement. Her 
policy becomes definitely a policy of peace, not 
war, of internal organization, not of outward 
expansion. England's task now is the evolution 
of an inner harmony and the founding of an 
imperially representative government. Again, 
there is the wider and more intricate problem 
of India. How is that freedom and justice, in 
any conscious and self-governing sense, to be 
extended to India? And to that problem may 
be added the like problem in Egypt. These 
are merely the central strands of a complex 
ganglion of questions which, with every year 
and every decade, will become more pressing. 



154 GERMANY AND ENGLAND 

Prof. Cramb believes that what England 
needs at the present time is tranquillity and 
security, that immunity from cares so necessary 
to free operations of the great faculties of the 
mind. But it is just this tranquillity, this 
security, which she cannot find. For whilst 
England may pray for peace in order to shape 
out these problems in politics, there still beyond 
the North Sea is the stern Watcher, unsleeping, 
unresting, bound to her own fate, pursuing her 
own distant goal undeviatingly, unfalteringly, 
weighing every action of England, waiting for 
every sign of England's weakness. It is here 
that Germany's will to power comes into tragic 
conflict with England's will to peace. It is 
useless to speak of friendly rivalry and generous 
emulation; for the Germans will not sit still 
in generous emulation of England, a power 
which they believe to be already tottering to 
its grave. Prof. Cramb finds it equally useless 
to seek a practical policy in arbitration, and 
it would be likewise futile to depend upon 
alliances as a permanent means of securing the 
peace of Europe. Treaties are binding only 
so long as you can make your enemy see gleam 
behind the parchment the point of a sword; 
for nations and states are governed by self- 
interest only. Peace he declares at best a 
truce on the battle-field of time. 

In closing his interesting book. Prof. Cramb 



GERMANY AND ENGLAND 155 

expresses the opinion that the creative power 
which has shaped the British Empire is not 
really dead, and that the momentary apathy 
and indifference to be a thing that shall pass 
away. Even now, he discovers everywhere 
stirrings of a new life, to hear the tramp of 
armies fired by a newer chivalry than that of 
Crecy, and on the horizon to discern the outline 
of fleets manned by as heroic a resolve as 
were those of Nelson or Rodney. Democratic 
England has known nothing of war, and in the 
hour of conflict, democracy will understand and 
assert its power, and defend the institutions 
that have been fashioned through the struggles 
of a thousand years. In closing, he says: 
''And if the dire event of a war with Germany, 
if it is a dire event, should ever occur, there 
shall be seen upon this earth of ours a conflict 
which, beyond all others, will recall that de- 
scription of the great Greek wars: 

' Heroes in battle with heroes, 
And above them the wrathful gods.' 

And one can imagine the ancient, mighty deity 
of all the Teutonic kindred, throned above the 
clouds, looking serenely down upon that con- 
flict, upon his favorite children, the English 
and the Germans, locked in a death struggle, 
smiling upon the heroism of that struggle, the 
heroism of the children of Odin, the War-god." 



156 GERMANY AND ENGLAND 

Such are the predictions of Prof. J. A. Cramb, 
of Queen's College, London, published in June, 
1 9 14, and now the Teutonic kindred are engaged 
in that mortal conflict, which he regarded as a 
possibility, and which, no doubt, is destined 
to decide the fate of empires and of ruling 
dynasties. 



